
Class ■ Tl A 6 d a 
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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




To 

"THE ONLY GIRL ON EARTH" 

My Daughter 

"RENCI" 

The companion of my travels and in ecer^ sense 

my fairest critic, this book is 

DEDICATED 

by) her affectionate 

"DADDY" 



ohn Bull, Limited 



By 

GEORGE W. HILLS 

'I 
With Photographs by the 
Author 



PHILADELPHIA 
1913 



, nb o 



COPYRIGHT 1914 
BY GEORGE W. HILLS 



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PREFACE 

I have not endeavored to "write a book." Therefore this 
is neither an official guide to England or a brief historical 
review of that much buffeted kingdom. Many things of 
interest pertaining to John Bull and his island have been 
omitted, and only a comparatively few localities touched 
upon in passing. This little volume was written to please 
the "Only Girl," to whom it is also dedicated, and having 
performed its alloted task and thereby justified its con- 
tinued existence, may possibly find favor elsewhere. With 
all its faults I love it still, for it is the fragmentary record 
of a pleasant sojourn in Albion. The statements it contains 
are all founded on either fact or circumstance, and are made 
without personal bias or enmity. Like most other things, 
John Bull must be viewed as an all-around proposition and 
from many standpoints. He is a complex individual, full 
of moods and changes, cordial or crabbed as you happen to 
find him, and must be judged accordingly. But he lives 
in a Paradise six months of the year, and one can at any 
rate ramble over his domain with an appreciation of all that 
is so beautiful and in some respects so different from what 
we are accustomed to at home. To travel is good for the 
soul, and even if it has no other broadening effect there is 
compensation in the pride and mighty gladness that per- 
vades every fibre of an American as he returns once more 
to "God's Country," after having compared it with the 
effete and mouldering institutions of the Old World. 



John Bull, Limited 

The following letter, written home during my first trip 
across the Atlantic years ago, always brings to me a little 
reminiscent thrill. It bears the Cunard crest of a Royal 
British Lion rampant, his face nearly hidden in magnificent 
Galway whiskers, rushing madly along on his hind legs, 
with raging tail erect and a large, hot plum pudding in his 
forepaws, — thus delicately conveying the idea of good food, 
prompt service and a quick trip. 




Cunard Royal Mail S. S. "Aurania." 
Nearing the Irish Coast, 

I am told that the Purser will take charge of letters written on 
board and post them at Queenstown for New York, so I improve 
the golden hour. It is not the easiest thing in the world to write a 
letter on this rolling, plunging ship. The ink-bottle is secured to 
the desk or it would soon be on the floor, and one slips, slides, or 
is swayed back and forth in the chair so constantly that writing is 
difficult. The trip thus far, with the exception of one turbulent 
day and night, has been an enjoyable one for those who have been 
well, including myself, but that day and night offset everything else. 
The ship had been rolling pretty constantly from the start, but on 
Monday we ran into rough water and nearly everyone except the 
crew went to bed. The great green rolling mountains were magnifi- 



6 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

cent, and came rushing up alongside as if determined to dash right 
on deck. But just at the critical moment the ship is lifted bodily 
up the long green slant to slide down the other side, where we are 
rolled over to meet the next upheaval, the lower deck shoveling up 
great masses of green and white water with every such dip. The 
sloping incline of the deck at such times is so steep that no one 
can walk without holding tightly to the guide-ropes that are lashed 
in place for such emergency. The steamer-chairs which ordinarily 
are ranged along the promenade deck, were tied fast to the iron 
rail extending under the cabin windows, to prevent sliding down- 
hill with their occupants, yet even with this precaution an unusual 
lurch of the ship will often send one flying like a toboggan into the 
scuppers. I had a bad fall myself in that way, while lying in my 
steamer-chair chatting with a seasick convalescent in the next one. 
The rope lashings got loose and as my chair suddenly started on a 
fiying-trip down the slope, I seized the arm of his chair, thereby 
upsetting my own, which went off into space by itself. The wrench 
that my weight gave the adjoining seat broke off the wooden arm 
and also snapped the rope, and both the invalid and myself had just 
got fairly started downhill on our backs when the ship rolled the 
other way and tumbled us in a heap against the cabin. I caught a 
rope as he seized my leg in a death-grip, and we hung there until 
the return lurch came and enabled us to scramble into other chairs. 
I had a bruised arm as a memento, but the excitement entirely cured 
the invalid of his seasickness and made him very chipper. Aside 
from this interval of bad weather, however, the trip has been de- 
lightful, with sunshine days and moonlight nights, and I have pass-ed 
hours in watching the great white-capped billows and in viewing the 
endless arcs and diagrams marked upon the sky by our masts and 
two great smokestacks, as we are rolled over and back by every 
passing monster wave. At night it is equally enjoyable to lie at 
ease in one's steamer-chair and view the star-studded sky over- 
head, the constellations appearing much larger and brighter than 
when seen from the land, and vastly more numerous. Under such 
soothing surroundings, one forgives the table-steward's regular 
morning query of " 'Hoatmeal or 'ominy, sir?" and wishes the 
voyage might continue indefinitely. 

Incidentally, my return trip to New York was a record 
one, being marked by rough weather from start to finish, 
and although I have since crossed the ocean many times. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 7 

both for pleasure and business, I have never passed through 
another such experience nor have I any wish to do so. 
Wind, weather and turbulent sea all combined to make that 
voyage one to be long remembered, and it is with yet 
another reminiscent thrill that I peruse once more the 
following portion of a letter written on board the battered 
and buffeted old-time Servia, just before we finally reached 
New York: 

Cunard Royal Mail S. S. "Servia^' 
Off Newfoundland Banks, 

En route Homeward. 

Trouble began as soon as we had got fairly out into the Channel 
after leaving Liverpool. I may say right here that we have had an 
exceptionally hard voyage — that not for years, even in this wintry 
season, has such weather been known on the Atlantic, and that the 
Servia is a bruised and tumbled plaything of the waves, her red 
smokestacks encrusted to the topmost part with white salt from the 
flying spray, her deck-rail broken, furniture smashed, crew injured 
and every passenger a lame and tired wreck. We are already two 
days overdue, and for four days past it has not been safe to go on 
deck, T have not been ill a moment, but am so lame and sore from 
constant straining to keep a balance, and from being thrown across 
the music-room yesterday by a violent roll of the ship, that I am 
hardly myself. Here is a brief outline of what we have been 
through : 

The day we left Liverpool was rainy and most unpleasant. 
Toward evening we got into the Channel, or Irish Sea, and the big 
steamship began to roll. By midnight the passengers had aban- 
doned sleep and were holding tight to their berths to prevent being 
thrown out! I retired about eleven o'clock, and took the precaution 
of putting a folded-up blanket under the front of my mattress, 
thereby making a little valley in the rear of the berth. As a result 
I slept soundly until about four A. M., when a heavy Ulster coat 
that hung overhead on a hook and had been thrashing about all night, 
suddenly let go and fell down on my head. I turned on the light, 
and then holding tightly to my berth, looked with wonder at the 
sight before me. My steamer-trunk and large traveling-bag were 
playing tag all over the floor of my cabin, now under the berth and 



8 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

now merrily racing down-hill and bringing up with a crash against 
the door. The water had slopped out of my big glass decanter 
all over the basin and carpet. I reached down and rescued my shoes 
as they slid past the berth. My clothes, suspended on hooks, were 
alternately stretching out straight in the air or being slapped for- 
cibly back against the wall, as the ship rolled and plunged and 
reared in a cross-sea that was simply awful. After a considerable 
time spent in trying to dress while grabbing the berth to prevent 
falling, I went on deck — but not to remain long. The spray and 
driving sleet made the place unendurable, while to walk in a straight 
line was simply impossible. It was just a matter of holding on 
for dear life, and gazing out over a frothing, seething waste of 
heaving and tossing billows, whipped by wind and rain, and furiously 
charging down upon our tossed and burdened ship. I finally went 
below for breakfast. Only half a dozen passengers appeared — the 
rest were in bed, groaning and seasick wrecks, careless alike of 
food or life itself. 

The forenoon was a repetition of the night's experiences — it was 
necessary to hold tightly to your chair if reading a book, or to 
brace yourself in a berth if lying down. About noon we entered 
Queenstown harbor, anchored in smooth water, and everyone 
breathed a breath of relief. We were to remain there for two 
hours, waiting for the late mails to come aboard, and gradually the 
passengers began to recover health, appear on deck, and lament their 
future, for there was a heavy gale outside and we were to proceed 
at once. Several hundred emigrants arrived with the mail-bags, and 
finally the little tender blew a parting whistle alongside and puffed 
away shoreward — the last link that connected us with solid land! 
Then we started out into the open sea, with three thousand miles of 
howling gale and heaving foam ahead, while the majority of passen- 
gers, including all the emigrants, promptly retired below deck to 
prepare for trouble. 

A Guion liner had preceded us out of the harbor, and when I ob- 
served her bow rising up and punching holes in the sky, three miles 
ahead of us, I closed my marine-glass, had my trunk and valise 
lashed to the cabin wall, and made up my mind to get one more meal 
anyhow and then trust to luck. We overtook the other boat about 
four o'clock. The spray was flying over her in a perfect deluge, and 
she plunged as if she would go under every time. Our own ship was 
pitching and rolling heavily also, and with a parting look over the 
storm-lashed mountains of water ahead, I went down to dinner. I 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 9 

found the dining-tables partitioned by "racks" into small enclosed 
spaces, to prevent plates and other things from sliding off — and 
such a dinner ! When the ship rolled your way everything on the 
table came rushing toward you as far as the rack permitted and 
brought up with a clatter. With the next roll of the ship everything 
rushed at the passenger opposite. Water splashed out of the heavy 
glass tumblers, while plates, food, and all things movable did the 
Virginia Reel. Such a rattle and clatter of dishes ! You drank 
your coffee from the cup held over your head, or dove into it as 
the next roll pitched you forward in your seat. The table-stewards 
skidded about on a floor slanted like a house-roof, doing a "short- 
leg and long-leg" act, and it was certainly remarkable how they 
maintained an equilibrium with both hands filled with dishes. It 
was an interesting diversion also to observe a passenger entering 
the saloon, slipping and sliding and grasping madly at chair-backs, 
until he finally reached his place and either fell upon somebody's 
head or lay abruptly down on the table 1 Nobody took soup — it 
was no time for soup. Also the dinner was a brief one, for nobody 
felt over-confident of his stomach, although we all smiled cheer- 
fully and endeavored to appear nonchalant. Two stewards escorted 
me solicitously to the door when I had finished dinner, and I skated 
and slid and then literally waltzed up the main staircase as the ship 
did an extra roll, seemingly for my benefit. The fresh salt air was 
delicious, and through the breaking clouds the moon was struggling 
into view. The storm was evidently clearing away — but alas, this 
was too good to be true. The moon had only come out to say 
good-bye — we haven't seen it since. 

That night I shared the common lot and didn't sleep. It required 
constant exertion and unceasing vigilance to even stay in one place. 
In other cabins I could hear the groans of the invalids and the 
frequent tinkle, tinkle of electric bells summoning weary stewards. 
The noise and din on deck was something fearful, and as a pleasant 
variety the ship's stern occasionally lifted clear from the waves and 
the liberated propellers whirled round in the air and shook the 
vessel from end to end. I lay in my berth, holding on tightly, and 
with both knees braced firmly against the front. After a while I 
got up, climbed on the sofa underneath the round port-hole and 
looked out through the thick wet glass. It was not a cheerful 
spectacle. When the ship rolled to starboard, my port-hole went 
about ten feet under water and the black seas rushed past with an 
angry surge that made me feel grateful that I was on the dry side 
of the glass. 



10 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

The following day was simply "more of the same." The gale in- 
creased and the sailors had the decks to themselves. During the 
forenoon a heavy sea broke over the forward deck and flung three 
sailors against the rail, breaking a rib for one and badly bruising 
the others. All three went under the surgeon's care. During the 
afternoon a table-steward was thrown bodily across the saloon and 
went to bed with a broken arm. One of the cooks was badly 
scalded in the kitchen by a sudden lurch of the ship, and the surgeon 
reported increasing business. I found it impossible to keep within 
doors — the great waves possessed a fascination that was simply ir- 
resistible, and eventually another passenger and myself induced an 
officer to take us outside on the wind-swept deck, where we could 
behold the war of the elements from a front orchestra seat. We 
were rushed along the slippery deck to the foot of a mast, and 
securely lashed thereto by a sailor who was nearly blown off his 
feet in the struggle. Standing there, drenched instantly by blinding 
sheets of spray and in a wind which made speech impossible, we 
beheld a scene of wild and terrible grandeur. Enormous waves like 
mountains of green water, each huge enough to engulf our entire 
ship, swung us upward like a toy, and from the crest we could see 
a blinding waste of other monster waves, tumbling, rolling and heav^ 
ing like Titans at play. Then followed the thrilling, rolling descent 
to the valley between and another breathless upheaval to the sum- 
mit of another giant. As the ship rolled, we could look straight 
down the almost perpendicular deck at our feet upon the waters 
raging almost directly under us — the next moment the mast swung 
us over backward until we could look straight up the same deck 
and see nothing but drifts of scudding cloud. Instinctively we 
gripped the mast-rail with clinging fingers, fearing lest the lash- 
ings break and plunge us helpless into the yawning gulf beneath. 
We were not allowed to remain there long, however, and were 
heartily glad to get back to shelter and safety again. 

Along in the afternoon, while we were playing whist in the 
smoking-room with more or less difficulty, a large whale rose about 
a hundred feet from the ship and afforded a fine spectacle. The 
whale was a big fellow and appeared not to mind the ship at all, 
rising and falling on the great waves and spouting water in fine 
style. He disappeared shortly, probably going down into the more 
quiet depths for a. change of scene. Later in the day a big sea 
struck the port bow and broke completely over it, flooding the deck 
and creating a panic in the steerage. Both officers and crew had 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED ii 

a strenuous quarter-hour in forcibly preventing the frenzied emi- 
grants from rushing on deck to almost certain death. That night 
was another nightmare like the one preceding, but I managed to get 
some sleep. 

At breakfast next morning we ran into a young hurricane, which 
included thunder, lightning, and a pelting storm of hailstones. They 
rattled on the decks and against the glass ports like volleys of 
musketry, and the sorely beset Servia heeled over under the force of 
the wind until it was impossible to move about on foot. The sailors 
crawled along the deck, holding to life-lines, and for half an hour it 
was a wild and crowded experience. Afterwards one of them 
brought me a great ball of hailstones, scooped up from the deck and 
resembling a huge white "pop-corn ball." Like magic the hail- 
storm passed away, leaving us to contend with only wind and sea. 
During the day another sailor was disabled by being thrown against 
an iron ventilator, and several emigrants were reported bruised 
by similar accidents in the steerage. 

So the days wore on, each like its predecessor, with no abatement 
of the rough sea or gale. Life became very monotonous, for every 
outlet was closed and barred, no passenger allowed on deck, and the 
barometer apparently knocked out and unable to rise, but still scowl- 
ing blackly at all enquirers. Great seas were constantly coming 
over the bow as the ship pitched deeply into them, lifting tons of 
water as she rose, which raced back along the decks to flood the 
scuppers and drench everything with flying spray. Thursday we 
had a snowstorm and some smarty added "Hot Snowballs" to the 
dinner menu. In the afternoon a great leisurely Goliath of a wave 
came on board, smashing in the smoking-room skylight, flooding 
the room and drenching half a dozen passengers to the skin. The 
impact of the wave sounded like a cannon or an explosion, and 
started another incipient panic in the steerage. The bridge was 
damaged, canvas torn away, and two men narrowly escaped being 
carried overboard. The ship's run was only 265 miles that day, 
and it proved the banner day of the storm. That night several of 
the female passengers slept on the floor of the main saloon, it being 
almost impossible to avoid being thrown from a berth. Friday was 
a day of special interest, caused by two men in the steerage who 
developed delirium tremens and were finally overpowered after a 
free fight, during which several sailors were called in to restore 
order. The steerage passengers have been in a very nervous and 
excited state during all these turbulent days and nights, being con- 



12 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

fined below deck and constantly expecting the worst to happen, 
and are a steady source of trouble to officers and crew. 

Next day the gale cleared a little and at night the wind diminished 
materially, but the heavy sea remained and the rolling and pitching 
were something to try the patience of Job himself. Everything 
not nailed down was tumbled around and broken, the dining-saloon 
was practically deserted, and existence was a trial to everyone on 
board from the Captain down. The rolling of the ship was not an 
even motion, but very tricky — it was difficult to locate in advance. 
Another steward was slammed against the saloon doorway, and 
yet another sailor reported injured. The ship's pet cat, asleep on 
a cl|a,ir with all her twenty claws gripped into the cushion for 
safety, was flung like a stone from a sling and went slap into a 
bunch of glassware on the sideboard, smashing about half of it 
and seriously annoying both the Chief Steward and the cat. 

The delay and storm and general discomfort of the trip are 
attributed by the crew solely to the presence on board of five clergy- 
men, which according to one sailor is sufficient to sink any ship 
afloat, even one clergyman on board being a direct tempting of 
Providence. 

This was the day of all days that I selected for what is usually 
my daily morning bath, and finding the bathroom a trifle hot and 
steamy, I unscrewed the brass port-hole in order to get fresh air, 
and then entered the tub. I had hardly seated myself therein when 
an extra long roll of the ship sent the open port under water, and 
what I thought was the whole icy-cold Atlantic came through the 
port-hole and down into the tub ! The deluge nearly washed me 
out of the room itself, and what with the sudden shock and the 
heroic efforts I made to get the thing shut, I forgot my bath. I 
mean my warm bath — I didn't forget the other one and never shall. 
The bath-steward will remember it also. He came a-running, gave 
one horrified glance into the room and rushed for a bucket ! 

This morning the sea has gone down very materially, several 
passengers have limped out on deck, the sun is apparently prepar- 
ing to shine once more, and the Captain says the storm is over. 
We are hustling along toward New York at a 400-mile clip, and 
if the good weather continues and we can keep those five clergymen 
out of sight, we expect to arrive on Tuesday, about three days late !" 

That was in the old days — back in '92. You can go to 
Europe in a very different style now. The following speci- 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 13 

men day's diary will show how the voyager may spend his 
time on one of the modern English liners : 

6 A. M., RISE. — The earliness of the hour is quite optional, but 
it gives time before breakfast for a 

SHAVE at the ship's barber-shop, and a 

MILE WALK round the ship's various decks. 

BREAKFAST. — Again the hour rests entirely with the passen- 
ger. Below is a specimen menu : 

Apples Oranges Bananas 

Quaker Oats Rice Hominy 

Fried Fresh Fish 

Finnan Haddock 

Grilled Beefsteak and Tomatoes 

Grilled Lambs Kidney 

Minced Veal with Poached Eggs 

Cerealine Fritters 

Broiled York Ham and Wiltshire Bacon 

Goa Curry and Rice 

Pork Chops to Order 

Potatoes : Plain, Mashed and French Fried 

Omelettes : Plain and Au Lard 

Eggs to Order, any Style 

COLD 

Roast Beef York Ham 

Wheat Cakes, Sally Lunns, Corn Bread 

Vienna and Graham Rolls 

Preserves Honey Marmalade 

Following breakfast the passenger may, after a short rest and 
stroll, turn into the 

Gymnasium. — Here, on quaint ostrich-like contrivances, he can 
find an excellent substitute for his ride in the Park, or even an up- 
to-date trot on a camel, or gripping the oars of the rowing-machine 
may have his morning's pull. 

Perhaps after this exertion he would like a Turkish or an electric 
bath. Both of these are to be found on the ship. A turn into the 
reading and writing-room, and he can read the latest news from the 



14 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

Marconi machine. Now he enters the "lift" and is conveyed to the 
dining-saloon for lunch. The following menu, compared with that 
of the dinner below, affords a striking contrast between the Ameri- 
can and the English styles. 

LUNCHEON MENU 

Sardines. Potted Shrimps 

Clam Chowder Beef Tea 

Fried Oysters 

Broiled Squab on Toast 

Corned Round of Beef and Vegetables 

Baked and Sweet Potatoes 

Chops and Steaks 

COLD 

Sirloin of Beef Roast Lamb and Mint Sauce 

Benoist Beef Smoked Tongue 

Boiled Ham. Lunch Sausages Brawn 

Beetroot Mixed Salad 

Rice Pudding Stewed Figs 

Ice Cream Assorted Cakes 

Cheddar or Gorgonzola Cheese 

Fruit. Coffee 

After such a repast one naturally turns with a book to the deck- 
chair, or smoke-room, or after a short nap, can join the ladies in 
the lounge, where passengers will doubtless indulge in a little music. 
The amateur photographer, however, will be on deck using up his 
supply of plates or films. 

After five o'clock tea in the lounge he will seek the open air again, 
either for another spell with his book, a walk on the shady part of 
the deck, or to send replies per Marconi to the friends whose 
messages he received in the morning. Then dress for dinner — a la 
Europe this time. 

DINNER MENU 

Olives Bloater Toast Celery 

Consomme Duchesse Potage Polonaise 

Bluefish, Maitre d'Hotel 

Saute of Wild Rabbits 

Filet de Boeuf, Chateaubriand 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 15 

Ribs of Beef, Yorkshire Pudding 
Haunch of Mutton, Red Currant Jelly- 
Chicken, Bread Sauce 
Minced Cabbage Oyster Plant 

Plain, Mashed or Roast Potatoes 
Cold York Ham 

Salad 
Lemon Pudding 
Compote of Apricots 
Ice Cream French Pastry- 

Cheese Straws 
Fruit Coffee 

The band has been playing merrily at the morning concert on 
deck, and during lunch and dinner. No-w the passenger strolls out 
on deck and -watches the white wake of the steamship and takes his 
final evening walk. He has his game of bridge with his little 
coterie, "and so," as Pepys hath it, "to bed." 

This liner may well be called a floating city, for in addi- 
tion to her crew of four hundred she can accommodate in 
the most up-to-date fashion over three thousand first, sec- 
ond and third class passengers. She is nearly half as long 
again as St. Paul's Cathedral, or about the extent of the 
river-front of the Houses of Parliament. If placed on end 
she would overtop every skyscraper in New York, and her 
upper end would be four times the height of Bunker Hill 
Monument. Yet even larger and finer Atlantic liners are 
being constructed, and the floating city costing between 
$9,000,000 and $10,000,000 is coming with its acres of deck- 
age, miles of distances, electrically-lighted streets, prom- 
enades of waving palms, its tropic gardens, electric lifts, 
reception rooms, dining-saloons, deck cafes and verandas, 
athletic fields, cricket and baseball grounds, tennis courts 
and golf links, wireless telegraph offices, theatres and grand 
opera, flower shops, swimming-pools and Turkish baths, 
deck trolley-cars and department stores. So much of this 
has already been realized that the remainder is easily con- 



i6 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

ceivable. These gigantic ships will not be greyhounds, 
however, but seven-day hotels, and are becoming a neces- 
sity because the public demands larger and more comfort- 
able sleeping-rooms on an ocean trip, more necessaries and 
more luxuries. It is only a question of deeper channels, 
longer piers and basins and general water-front improve- 
ment at terminals. 

Yet contrasted with the modern palace hotel, these ocean 
leviathans, although considered by many people the highest 
type of construction achievement, afford but a slight com- 
parison. A 1000-foot liner would displace about 70,000 
tons of water, as against 150,000 tons of rock displaced in 
New York to make way for the basement, cellars and 
foundations of the Hotel McAlpin. Its twenty-eight floors 
comprise an acreage of twenty-one acres, and more than 
two thousand servants are employed. In the matter of 
state-rooms there is no comparison whatever, since in the 
hotel are sixteen hundred and fifty rooms. Yet even this 
amazing capacity is far surpassed by statistics of some of 
the New York "skyscrapers," or modern office buildings, 
the highest of which rear their fifty floors upward for 
nearly a thousand feet, or as high into the clouds as 
the Eiffel Tower! 

Here is yet another object-lesson in modern trans- Atlantic 
transport. Read this slowly, son, and let the statistics 
sink in : 

The Hamburg-American liner 'Tmperator" carried on her 
maiden trip this year the largest number of passengers ever 
carried on any single steamship in any part of the world, 
said passenger-list being 3,649. Combining this number 
with her crew of officers and men, numbering 1,332, gives a 
total of 4,981 souls. 

Usually the crew of the liner numbers only 1,180, but 




Mid-Atlantic 




A Wayside Inn at Wargrave 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 17 

owing to the large passenger-list she carried 220 extra hands 
in the steward's department. There were 859 first, 647 
second, 648 third, and 1,495 steerage passengers aboard. 
Arrangements were made at the Custom House in New 
York to have the entire force of Acting Deputy Collectors, 
Acting Deputy Surveyors and Inspectors, 250 in all, at 
Hoboken when the "Imperator" docked, and there were 
also 40 Appraisers on duty. At a conservative estimate, 
passengers in the first and second cabins averaged three 
trunks each, which gives a total of 4,518, besides 300 pieces 
of small baggage. 

The enclosed square in front of the Hamburg- American 
Line pier was filled with over 400 automobiles and taxi-cabs, 
while outside the roadway was a long line of cabs and 
hansoms to carry away the passengers and their baggage. 

Figures given by the agents of the line show that the 
"Imperator" carried on her voyage for the tables on the 
ship 50,000 pounds of fresh meat, 9,000 pounds of venison 
and poultry, 9,000 pounds of fresh fish, 6,000 pounds of 
bread, 1,000 pounds of yeast, 48,000 eggs, 28,000 pounds of 
fresh vegetables, 13,000 pounds of fresh fruits, 150 cases of 
lemons and oranges, and 1,500 boxes of ice cream, all for 
this trip to New York only. In addition, she carried these 
stores for the out and home voyage — that is, from Ham- 
burg to New York and return: 10,000 pounds of potatoes, 
4,400 pounds of onions, 350 barrels of flour of 200 pounds 
each, 330 gallons of vinegar, 60 barrels of salt, 550 pounds 
of mustard, 165 pounds of pepper, 1,500 bottles of fruit, 
350 pounds of spices, 27,000 pounds of salt meat, 9,000 
pounds of ham and sausages, corned tongues and bacon, 25 
barrels of herrings, 2,000 tons and 100 barrels of preserved 
fish, 800 pounds of smoked fish, 6,000 pounds of cheese, 
1,400 gallons of sterilized milk and cream, 5,200 tins of con- 
densed milk, 5,500 pounds of butter, 6,000 pounds of mar- 



i8 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

garine, 6,000 tins of vegetables, 800 tins of mushrooms, 
2,600 pounds of cucumbers, beetroot, pickles, etc., 1,300 
pounds of dried vegetables, 5,500 pounds of sauerkraut 
and salt haricots, 600 pounds of tinned fruit, 2,200 pounds 
of orange and plum marmalade, 250 pounds of fruit juices, 
11,000 pounds of sugar, syrup and honey, 5,600 pounds of 
coffee, 380 pounds of tea, 440 pounds of chocolate and 
cocoa, 4,400 pounds of rice, sage, vermicelli, macaroni, oat- 
meal, etc., for cabin use, 20,000 pounds of rice, dried peas 
and beans, etc., for ship's crew and steerage passengers, 
1,600 pounds of biscuit, waffles, etc. 

The cellars were stocked with 700 bottles of dessert 
wines, 5,000 bottles hocks and Moselles, 4,500 bottles Bur- 
gundy and claret, 3,000 bottles French champagne, 2,100 
bottles German sparkling wines, 2,200 bottles brandy, 
whisky and other liquors, besides 6,000 gallons and 3,000 
bottles of beer, 15,000 bottles of mineral water and 660 
gallons of crew wines and spirits. 

Gee! In comparison with the historic first trip of the 
"Mayflower," and the caravels of Columbus, it is not only 
evident that "Tempora mutantur," but also that we are 
going some. 

Thus we progress in this age of achievement, and already 
an Inter-Continental Air Line is proposed for the aerial 
transportation of passengers between New York and Lon- 
don, via Pekin. Zeppelin airships, averaging forty miles 
an hour, with accommodations de luxe, are scheduled to 
stop at the following stations en route: New York, Chi- 
cago, Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, 
Seattle, Ft. Williams, Behring, Sakholm, Tokio, Pekin, 
Irkutsk, Omsk, Orenburg, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Riga, 
Berlin, Cologne, Paris and London ! There's a charming 
six-weeks' trip — and who shall say it isn't entirely feas- 
ible? 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 19 

I shall never forget my impressions as I stood early one 
morning on the balcony of my hotel room at Assmans- 
hausen, on the Rhine, and saw the great Zeppelin come 
over the crest of a mountain toward me, like a wingless 
yellow monster of the air. As it passed overhead on its 
way to Cologne, the propellers making a low humming 
like that of some gigantic insect, the rising sun illuminated 
with sudden splendor the saffron silken body, as if to 
glorify the creative genius of Man, therein exemplified. 
What Man has done, Man can do, and even now is doing — 
enlarging, strengthening and ever improving the Zeppelin 
type, designed for either peace or war — for carrying either 
passengers or explosives with equal speed and safety. It 
was while these and similar thoughts were crowding my 
mind as I watched the fast disappearing miracle, that I 
became suddenly aware of the early morning chill, my ab- 
breviated nightiiapparel and the feverish interest taken in 
my balcony by some absurd persons on the opposite side- 
walk. Five seconds later both the Zeppelin and myself 
had vanished. 

English people are a constant well-spring of joy and de- 
light. They shout "Murder" if the thermometer registers 
below forty during their winter of conglomerate fog, rain 
and mud, and then shriek for help if the mercury rises 
above seventy-five in the summer. With them it is either 
"Arctic weather — most extr'ordinary, y'know," a time for 
stuffing cotton in ears and noses, wearing a tea-strainer 
muzzle for filtering pneumonia germs, and shutting the 
windows tight in every shop and omnibus — or else it is 
"Tropical 'eat — 'Orrid!" and a 'arf-crown trip to the sea- 
shore. I should like to "personally conduct" a few Lon- 
doners to New York in August and see them melt away like 
a penny ice, or take them there in January into plenty of 
snow and a genuine winter temperature. English people 



20 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

do not know what real weather is. The English winter 
climate is a mixture of fog, drizzle and raw wind — the 
cold dampness penetrates clear to your marrow, but does 
not nip your ears like our clear frosty atmosphere. There 
is a graveyard chill about it that is itself "quite English, 
y'know," and very productive of coughs and colds. But 
it isn't "Arctic weather," nor is the summer ever "tropical." 
There is no lovlier spot on earth than England from April 
to October, with its cool air, its wealth of field, hedges and 
delightful woodland, its English "may" and chestnut trees 
m, full bloom — a land where every house has its dainty 
flower-garden and no window so poor as to be without its 
plants or blossoms. But during the balance of the year 
England and perdition are about equally desirable for resi- 
dential purposes. 

The London 'bus, with its red-faced, loquacious Jehu, 
chronic of thrist and repartee, every ready for a chat with 
the occupant of the seat beside him — the 'bus of Dickens 
and Trollope, famous in song and story — is gradually dis- 
appearing before the increasing number of motor-omni- 
buses, that more rapid but utterly detested vehicle which 
leaves a mephitic and sickening trail of gasoline behind it. 
Vanishing into the historic past is the lumbering ark re- 
splendent with cocoa and beef-tea advertisements and red, 
green or yellow of body — guided by an autocrat strapped 
high on his throne aloft, and officered by the meekest and 
lowliest of mankind officiating as conductor. The progress 
of the 'bus-driver through the throng of traffic is triumphal. 
He raises his whip in royal salutation to brother Jehus 
passing his chariot and discharges his amazing vocabulary 
at inoffensive pedestrians who impede his imperial march. 
Have you ever occupied a front seat atop a London 'bus, 
tipped the driver a tuppence or possibly a "tanner," and 
listened to his amiable dissertations e7t route? If not, you 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 21 

have missed a treat. From no other vantage-point can the 
city be studied as well, or with so much attendant pleasure. 
Information, both guide-book and otherwise, and the 
raciest of passing comment, will be showered upon you in 
proportion to your silver introduction to his. graces, and 
many a witty quip and jest be shot at his passing brethren 
for your edification. " 'Urry up, Guy Fowkes," was the 
objurgation shouted by my driver one day to a gorgeously 
red-coated and gold-laced coachman on a Royal equipage 
that temporarily blocked the traffic, causing that pampered 
menial to fairly turn purple with helpless rage, to the de- 
lighted enjoyment of other drivers within earshot. 

"I sye, Guv'nor," said another 'bus-driver, as we jogged 
along down the Strand one afternoon, "d'ye see that chap 
driving the yellow 'bus? Watch 'im go dotty now." To 
all appearances the approaching driver had not a care in 
the world as he guided his horses toward us, composedly 
puffing his pipe and trailing his long whip-lash — then just 
a moment before he passed, my driver lifted the round 
official badge hanging on his breast and dangled it up and 
down like a jumping- jack before the amazed and shocked 
eyes of the other. Instantly that living picture of peaceful 
content became a raging demon! He shook his fist as his 
vehicle bowled past us, and shouted, "Wyte till I 'ave you 
in the barn, Jow — I'll blooming well 'ammer your blawsted 
heyes hout." 

"Holy smoke," said I. "Is he crazy?" 

"Werry loikely, Guv'nor," chuckled "Jow." "You see 
'is father 'ad a bit of trouble with the 'ang-man!" 

An American friend and myself one day mounted the 
roof of a Bayswater 'bus, and pretending to be unac- 
quainted with each other, took the front seats, John on the 
driver's left, I on his right. The fat, red-faced driver 
greeted me with a propitiatory grin and a "Mornin', 



22 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

Guv'nor," whereupon I passed him a "tanner" (English as 
she is spoke for sixpence) and enquired, "What is that 
big building over there?" 

"Thankee, Guv'nor — yessir — that 'ere is the 'orspital, 
sir — yessir — werry fine building, sir." 

At this moment, John, on his other side, touched his arm 
and handed him a "bob" (the English for shilling), remark- 
ing confidentially, "Here, old chappy, never mind him — 
v^hat's this Park over here?" 

"Thanks, me Lord — that's not a Park — that's privut 
grounds, me Lord — belongs to the Juke of ." 

"I say," I interrupted, "is this a Club House, driver," 
pointing to a building on my right. 

"No, Guv'nor; that's a privut 'ouse, sir — belongs to 
Lydy — -." 

"Here, what's this place over here," interrupted John, 
and the bewildered driver, trying to serve two masters, 
turned to reply, but jerked the reins vigorously instead and 
shouted, "Wo — Wo, there!" having nearly run down 
another 'bus while his attention was distracted from his 
horses, which was exactly what John and I were antici- 
pating. Then after his fiery steeds had risen from their 
haunches and the proper amount of profane repartee had 
been exchanged between the two drivers and freely echoed 
by both conductors, we drove on with our enjoyment bot- 
tled for the next opportunity. This pleasing diversion can 
be safely repeated two or three times with the same driver. 
The English comprehension takes a lot of comprehending, 
and that brief ride added considerably to the gayety of at 
least one nation. 

The 'bus conductor is the direct antithesis of his lordly 
confrere on the box — meek and humble as befits his lowly 
station, literally a servant of the people, and in a country 
where society is divided into "clawsses," whereof each class 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 23 

kicks and snubs the class below, all the inferior classes alike 
lord it over the poor 'bus conductor, whose polite deference 
and absolute servility is unfailing. He thanks you for your 
fare, thanks you again as he passes along back to his sta- 
tion on the rear footboard, touches his hat if you ask a 
question and thanks you along with his reply — courtesies 
which are accepted by the general public as homage rightly 
due to superior beings. There being more square-inch civ- 
ility to the average 'bus conductor than to any average four 
Englishmen on the sidewalk, we were sometimes moved to 
impress a moral lesson on the haughty British public. John, 
two American friends of ours, and myself took a 'bus to 
Piccadilly one Sunday, each of us arrayed not like Solomon 
in all his glory, but like the Englishman in all of his — 
"top 'at," long, black frock-coat, light trousers, gray gloves 
and the inevitable rolled umbrella — the regulation civic 
uniform of the English gentleman, familiarly called ''toff." 
Thus appareled, and each with difficulty managing a plain- 
glass monocle, we rose majestically from our seats on the 
'bus roof and descended in dignified single file the narrow 
winding stairway to the rear platform. The conductor 
politely stepped off to the curbstone to allow us to pass and 
as we filed slowly by, John shook hands with him cordially, 
said "Had a charming ride, old man; thanks, very much; 
good-bye," and then each of us in turn grasped his hand 
and wished him a hearty farewell, the last man leaving in 
his paralyzed palm a bright silver shilling. The amazing 
spectacle of four dignified ''toffs" parting thus from an 
humble and despised conductor was always sufficient to at- 
tract excited heads from the 'bus windows and roof, appall 
passers-by on the sidewalk, and create a temporary ob- 
struction to traffic. We walked on with a lordly uncon- 
sciousness of the presence of others on the same earth, 
leaving a dumfounded conductor staring in a trance at a 



24 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

shilling in his hand, while an irate and impatient driver 
slapped his whiplash along the wheels and vociferated, "I 
sye, Bill, wot are we stying 'ere for? Garn!" 

The place to enjoy a 'bus-ride is on the roof, as pre- 
viously stated (the roof of the 'bus, of course), but the nar- 
row winding stairway leading thereto is certainly a trial to 
fat people, or those untrained as acrobats. A climbing, 
swaying, pushing line of people mounting the stairway of a 
'bus in motion may not be a thing of beauty, but it is a 
joy forever to remember. It is a case of hanging on, bump- 
ing and being bumped, but ever progressing upward. Once 
in your seat you are all right until you have to descend 
again. Most people descend as one descends an ordinary 
stairway, face to the front and holding on by the railings 
at each side, but occasionally the street throng is edified 
by the spectacle of some timid female descending back- 
wards, very slowly and carefully, to the tremendous in- 
dignation of the waiting passengers and the privately ex- 
pressed disapproval of the poor conductor. 

But there are ways and means of avoiding this discom- 
fort in mounting and dismounting while the 'bus sways 
and plunges along its course like a ship at sea. Witness 
this extract from a letter before me, written by a somewhat 
stout American sojourning in London: *T am really en- 
joying my 'bus riding now, for I am no longer obliged to 
fall all over the roof and down the step-ladder, if I wish 
to get off while the 'bus is in motion. I just say to the 
driver, "Charlie, pull up at the next corner for me; I've 
an artificial leg, and it's a bit awkward on a 'bus, y'know," 
and you'd drop dead to see the 'bus come to a halt and wait 
for me to corkscrew my way down to the sidewalk, and ob- 
serve the tender solicitude and hungry interest the driver 
takes in looking back at my artificial outfit as I walk off 
rather automatically, being a bit stiff in the joints, maybe. 




Westminster Abbey and Parliament 
Tower 




'Ready to Ride on the King's Business." Whitehall 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 25 

from sitting so long in one place. Upon my word, it is 
sometimes embarrassing to me, the way drivers and con- 
ductors let business slide and passengers howl in vain, while 
they watch my legs. I couldn't feel more complimented if 
I wore pink tights. Fm going to buy a little alarm-clock, 
muffle the bell a bit, and some day let it go off on top a 'bus, 
and groan, *My God, driver, my leg has run down ! How 
will I ever get off this 'bus !' And if five or six able-bodied 
Britons like to carry me down to the sidewalk, I shall feel 
quite repaid by their remarks when they see me skipping 
blithely up the stairs of a 'bus going back." 

Yes, as I said before, there are ways and means, but 
that American is going to get into trouble sooner or later, 
when some worm of a conductor sees a great light and 
abruptly turns. 

But as to weather, England has a practical monopoly of 
fogs. No other fogs are like English fogs, and no other 
English fog is like a London fog. Whether this is due to 
the soft-coal smoke which pours out of so many thousands 
of London chimney-pots, or whether the angels in the 
celestial Weather Bureau like to blot this modern Babylon 
off the map occasionally and look down on something 
pleasant, even a fog, perhaps, the fact remains that a Lon- 
don fog will take the blue ribbon every time for density, 
ugliness and smell. It mixes with the soft-coal smoke, 
forcing tears from the stranger's eyes and crimson lan- 
guage from his protesting mouth — it shrouds the houses, 
people, traffic and thoroughfares in a dirty-yellow, impene- 
trable blanket of damp and soot-impregnated atmosphere 
which soils your linen, hides your path, ruins your temper 
and changes the color of your lungs. The interior finish 
of the ordinary human lung is normally a delicate salmon- 
pink in color, according to medical authorities who have 
enjoyed opportunities for such observation, and the color- 



26 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

scheme of lungs belonging to residents of the countryside 
conforms to this healthy and attractive hue. The interior 
decoration of the London lung is said to be very different. 
Owing to the dirt and soot breathed by the London resi- 
dent, his lungs sooner or later assume a dark-brown color, 
which contrasts unfavorably with the general harmonious 
tint of his inner anatomy. London fog is further charged 
with resembling pea-soup, both in fragrance and appear- 
ance, which is not only unkind to that particular variety of 
soup, but does not convey the proper description. There 
are worse soups than pea-soup, but there are no worse 
fogs than a London fog. It surrounds you with a dense 
wall that seemingly retreats as you walk along, but is 
always about six inches beyond your nose. You cannot 
see your hand before your face in the day-time, or the 
street-light shining brightly above your head at night. You 
know the pavement is under your feet, because you are 
walking on it, but you cannot distinguish the presence of 
other pedestrians, or of vehicles, until you collide. Under 
such circumstances, all sorts of things occur. Railway 
trains run very slowly and are hours late on arrival. Om- 
nibuses, other vehicles and trams (street-cars) crawl along 
.in a happy-go-lucky way, drivers trusting to their horses 
or to frequent shouts of warning to avoid collisions, while 
innumerable "bobbies" (policemen) acquire premature gray 
hair in endeavors to straighten out the traffic and preserve 
their lives at the same time. Pedestrians desiring to cross 
a street lose their bearings and grope vainly with canes 
and umbrellas for a curbstone, frequently arriving back 
at the starting-point and then proceeding calmly on their 
way under the happy delusion that they got across ! I was 
told of a man who had resided for years in a certain Lon- 
don street, who went out one foggy morning to purchase 
something in a shop directly opposite his house. He stood 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 27 

on the curb, carefully took his bearings, and started across 
in a straight line with both hands extended before him to 
ward off any fog-blind horse, or prevent butting into some 
other unfortunate wayfarer. He stumbled up against some 
obstruction, dimly perceiving a lighted window, and through 
the glass the back of somebody'^s head. While he was grop- 
ing for a door, the whole mirage suddenly moved along 
and he felt a pain in his foot. He had been looking into 
the window of a street-car, which had calmly proceeded on 
its way, after cutting off three of his toes ! This seems 
very remarkable, but the man who told the incident to me 
was an entire stranger and apparently sincere, yet I can- 
not but fear that he was flirting with the truth. 

After a two-days' encounter with a typical London fog, 
I wrote the following legal opinion of it, and as I have 
forgotten where it was originally published, I will present 
it here in order to make certain sure next time. The fact 
that some of the statements therein have been openly 
doubted by people who know nothing about fogs, is of no 
consequence whatever. There are some people who 
wouldn't believe what they saw in a mirror, even if the ears 
on it were covered with pillow-cases. This is it : 

IN TENEBRIS. 

A London Reminiscence. 

It is tAvo P. M. exactly, but it seems like twelve at night, 

A thick and yellow London fog has shut out all the light ; 

The lamp-posts stand enshrouded like a lot of martial ghosts, 

But the lamps are good for nothing, they don't even light the posts. 

The cabs and 'busses at a walk go creeping, groping by, 

And the language of the drivers makes the angels shriek on high. 

The sidewalks are invisible, the street a blank abyss, 

No matter how or where you turn you're sure to make a miss. 

The "bobby," like a spectre dim, with lantern at his belt. 

Goes fumbling like the rest of us, in fog that can be felt! 



28 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

You can hear him shouting orders, now near and now afar, 

But like Moses when the light was out, " 'E don't know where *e 

are." 
The only man who knows his way is he who drives a tram, 
He's sure he can't get off the rails, and doesn't care a — penny ! 
Hark ! Here's a cabby calling to a neighbor out of sight, 
What's that he says ? An accident ? Why, this is shocking, quite : 
"D'jer 'ear 'bout Bill, of Camberwell, wot runs a 'bus for Semmes? 
'E missed the blooming Bridge and all, and druv into the Tems ! 
The four hinsides wos drownded and both 'is 'osses lost, 
And a soldier on the houtside swum hall the wye across ! 
Bill got ashore a 'arf mile down, afloatin' on 'is 'bus — 
*0h. Lor', 'e says, when landed, 'Wot a bloomin' blasted muss!'" 

Which serves to point a moral that may very useful be 
And however thick the fog is, it's a moral you can see. 
When London drivers lose the way, there's no more to be said, 
The safest place for strangers then is right upstairs in bed. 

Which I admit is going some, but is nevertheless en- 
tirely true. Such things have really happened and the moral 
is an excellent one. Nobody in bed ever got lost in a Lon- 
don fog, or if so, it was never reported at any police sta- 
tion. I have made careful enquiries among London police- 
men and the answers were always in the negative, and very 
emphatic. 

There is a good old maxim, ''When you are in Rome, do 
as Romans do." This applies to the whole Continent of 
Europe, including the bunch known as England, Ireland, 
Scotland and the Isle of Man — otherwise. Great Britain. 
But it is not possible for the average American to get within 
a mile of following it — they'll "do" him no matter what 
he does. And they'll do him good, though he will have 
much difficulty in locating the good. The entire European 
population is out to plunder and loot the American visitor, 
promptly recognized by his speech and courteous ways, and 
universally regarded as a plutocrat roaming loose and 
loaded with wealth belonging rightfully to anyone able to 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 29 

separate him from it. He pays an extra high price where- 
ever he goes — in many London and Continental shops the 
regular prices rise automatically as he enters the door, and 
are readjusted after his departure — he is beset and besought 
by shop attendants, overwhelmed with adulation and fer- 
vent proffers of service, shown what he wants and what 
he doesn't want, and "done" in nine cases out of ten to a 
crisp, tender brown, and to the Queen's taste as well as 
the shopkeepers. There are exceptions to the rule, of 
course, but the American seldom finds them. From his 
hotel bill to his smallest outside purchases, he will acquire 
more or less of a roast. On the Continent especially, even 
the street-car conductor expects a one-half cent tip from 
the New World visitor, who of a certainty is a millionaire 
at least. And as nine out of ten visiting Americans do not 
understand or speak the language of any other country, it 
follows that nine out of ten Americans consequently lose 
the satisfaction of adequately impressing an unfavorable 
opinion on the foreigner when occasion demands. If he 
can speak the language of the country, however, he is in 
a far better position in every way and less likely to be im- 
posed on. But he will be ''done" nevertheless, nor will he 
be able to do as Romans do in return, for like Arvernus, 
there is no return, or in other words, no "getting back." He 
may possibly find consolation in the reflection that it is more 
blessed to give than to receive. When a prominent Paris 
journal recently announced the arrest on the Continent of 
a notorious hotel robber, a New York paper which repub- 
lished the item enquired solicitously of what hotel the ar- 
rested man was proprietor — an enquiry that won respon- 
sive and appreciative applause up and down the length and 
breadth of a long-suffering Republic. 

All of which brings us by easy, natural and successive 
stages to the consideration of an English Sunday — the 



30 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

dreariest of all days in the English calendar, even as Eng- 
land is on that day the dreariest, saddest and most lone- 
some place on all the earth. An English Sabbath is some- 
thing well worth avoiding, whether in town or country — a 
relic of Cromwellian days, religious intolerance, bigtory and 
oppression. The majority of English people regard Sun- 
day as a day of enforced idleness and penance, without 
pleasure or recreation, and with no place of entertainment 
but church or " 'pub." The great majjority of museums, 
libraries, art galleries, and other educational resorts, are 
religiously closed on Sunday, contrary to the generous Con- 
tinental custom which on that day of leisure opens wide all 
such places to the public free of charge, and in most in- 
stances provides free band concerts and other out-of-door 
attractions also. 

In England you have on Sunday a choice of practically 
only two local resorts — you can go to church, or you can go 
to the 'pub, or drinking-saloon. And in order that these 
two rival Sabbath attractions may not conflict, the working 
hours are divided between them. The 'pub closes up when 
church service begins and remains closed until one o'clock 
P. M., at which time the bar-doors are thrown open to a 
waiting and thirsty throng of saints and sinners, church- 
goers and Weary Willies alike, many of them accompanied 
by the family tin pail for carrying beer away. The 'pubs 
close again during afternoon and evening church service, 
but are wide open between times, and figuratively speaking, 
the lid is then off till midnight. These drinking places are 
thronged with men and women, principally from the work- 
ing class, and many of them intoxicated, and are a prom- 
inent and disgraceful ulcer on the body politic of every 
English city and town. 

It is, however, quite possible to obtain liquid sustenance 
even during the above brief and dry hours of Sunday clos- 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 31 

ing, provided the thirsty applicant be a "traveler," v^hich 
means that he is at least three miles from home! London 
"travelers" simply take a 'bus or tram three miles or so out 
into the suburbs and there discover in every country 'pub 
a life-saving station, while suburban residents dying from 
thirst are given first aid to the injured at the city hostelries. 
Thus the Sunday liquor-traffic law is rigidly and properly 
enforced locally, but not so severely as to greatly discom- 
fort the mass of English population. I shall never forget 
an especially dry and hot Sunday two days after my first 
arrival on English shores. We had been riding in a 
barouche from the Langham Hotel to Hampton Court, 
about ten miles distant from London, and along about four 
o'clock in the afternoon there occurred to somebody the im- 
mortal language of the Governor of North Carolina to the 
Governor of South Carolina. The driver of the barouche 
proved to be an intelligent animal and guided his Arabs to 
the nearest life-saving station, which was closed up tight! 
The driver said, " 'It on the door, Guv'nor — 'it 'ard." I 
accordingly banged on the door, which at once opened a 
crack and a red-faced John Bull enquired, "Wot's wanted ?" 
I said, "We wish to go inside." 

"Are you a traveler?" he enquired. 

"We are travelers, certainly," I replied. 

"Wot plyce are you from ?" was the next question in the 
ritual. 

''New York" I said proudly, as a good American should. 

"Well, you've come a blooming wyse to get a drink !" he 
gasped, as the door swung wide open, " 'Urry right hinside, 
sir!" 

I learned afterward that my answer should have been 
"London," which was quite sufficiently distant under the 
three-mile rule to cover all objections. Thus we live and 
learn. 



32 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

There was once a time, nay there have been times more 
than once, when England's teeth and claws were prom- 
inently in evidence against the budding young Republic 
flying the Stars and Stripes. But the England of to-day 
sends us bouquets instead of bullets and extends to this 
country a maternal solicitude which is certainly pleasing to 
the eye, whatever underlying jealousy it may conceal. Te 
British Lion has made serious mistakes in his time, but 
never one more serious to both his prestige and pocket than 
the attempted levy of an unjust taxation on our grand- 
daddies. He has since endeavored in many ways to retrieve 
this error of royal judgment — some of which were ill- 
advised and expensive, notably in the case of the Confed- 
erate ''Alabama]" and "Shenandoah," which owed their 
existence to English aid and English gold — other ways less 
openly hostile, but quite as treacherous — and others still, 
signalized by olive branches of all sizes, and golden words 
of more or less value in the assay. The consensus of pub- 
lic opinion in England to-day is that the attempted oppres- 

® sion and consequent loss of the American Colonies was an 
especially grievous blunder by George the Third, a catas- 
trophe which in view of certain political dangers in Europe 
'and the increasing strength of her German rival, England 

5 cannot too speedily induce Americans to forgive and forget. 
It has been difficult to accomplish this very effectually dur- 
ing the past two or three generations, probably because 
Americans have excellent memories and good reasons for 
distrusting either Greeks or Britons bearing gifts. But it 
is essential, even vital perhaps, to the continued peace and 
safety of the British Empire. Therefore the British Lion 
purrs his affectionate wooing of the American Eagle, his 
conversation relating largely to blood-relationship and the 
thin quality of water in comparison, the great desirability 
of the English-speaking race "standing together," and to 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 33 

other subjects intimately associated with a prospective lov- 
ing cup. The United States, barred by its constitution from 
entangling foreign alliances, rests contentedly in its position 
of acknowledged strength and supremacy over other na- 
tions, England included, and emulates the diplomatic ex- 
ample of Brer Rabbit in "layin' low an' sayin' nothin?" 
England has ever been a schoolyard bully over smaller na- 
tions, warring and plundering without let or hindrance, ap- 
propriating the marbles and sixpences of the weaker boys 
with regard to neither decency or propriety, and her victims 
have much to remember when Time shall bring around the 
psychic moment of opportunity and reprisal. With the 
United States as her ally, England could defy the world — 
but comparatively alone and with Germany steadily arming, # 
England does not sleep well o' nights. Hence the olive 
branches and the entire tree annexed, hence the loud-spoken 
words of friendship, nay of real affection, and hence the 
belated discovery of blood-density and other things too nu- 
merous to mention. The English people, rank and file, fully 
comprehend these things to-day, and American visitors 
cannot fail to be more or less impressed by the welcome , 
generally accorded them in England and the frequent ref- 
erences there, both in public speeches and private conver- 
sation, to the beauty and duty of a closer relationship. But 
underneath this smooth veneer lies the wood and fibre of 
the secret jealousy which has prompted in the past both 
open war and treacherous injury to our fair Republic, re- ^ 
vealed by a scratch perhaps where least expected. The 
Alaska boundary, The Venezuela question, occasional dis- 
putation of the Monroe Doctrine, the adding and strength- 
ening of fortifications on the Canadian frontier — all have 
served as little straws to show the wind-direction, and it is 
no mietaphorical figure of speech to say that the American 
Eagle, viewing past and present events with a contempla- 



34 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

tive and judicially-appreciative eye, will hardly lose her 
little fluttering heart, or even skip a beat of that useful 
organ on account of the suspicious and imperfectly- 
disguised blandishments of a Lion which has already more 
than once suffered a disfigured hide and knotted tail at the 
hands of the present object of its alleged adoration. 

A prominent Englishman in Liverpool, speaking not only 
for himself, but for several other representative business 
men present, said to an American: "Your national Ameri- 
can blood, once pure, has become thinned and adulterated 
by the tide of Old World emigration. You are already too 
cosmopolitan, and by and by you will not be the true 
American nation, a nation produced from Americans born, 
but a composite conglomeration of all races — German, Irish, 
Swedish, Italian, even negro blood perhaps. On the con- 
trary, we of England remain English, purely and simply 
English, representing the best blood and brawn the world 
has ever known, either in peace or war. Your nation is 
most corrupt politically, while our politics are pure — your 
standard of commercial honor is very low, your flag is the 
emblem of graft of every kind, from your highest to your 
most insignificant representatives — your nation is fair to 
outside view, but rotten within. It cannot always be thus. 
All the greatest and most powerful nations of history have 
fallen successively through internal rottenness or too much 
luxury — excepting England. We still and ever shall stand 
supreme." 

The American replied in substance thus : "Accepting for 
the sake of argument all you say as true, and setting aside 
the great tendency of your countrymen to pat themselves on_ 
the back, the fact remains that the Egnlish people are a 
Pharasiacal people, thanking God that they are not as other 
people are, or even as we poor Republicans, so to speak. 
You see only one side of the shield, and you see that 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 35 

through British spectacles. Your free trade principles have 
brought England to her knees in the commercial struggle 
and filled your cities with an army of starving and helpless 
unemployed. Your political standards have fallen into the 
hands of demagogues whose ambition is confined to per- 
sonal and selfish ends, and great world-questions of the 
highest moment to England are neglected while your public 
men play with Home Rule and female suffrage. England 
is the dumping-ground for the human filth of every Con- 
tinental country — the Jew, the criminal, the insane and the 
pauper. Only recently has any effort been made to even 
regulate this torrent of inflowing scum through restrictions 
which amount to nothing and are easily evaded by these 
undesirables and those who assist their landing. Your 
Customs and Quarantine regulations are few and poorly 
enforced. In America paupers, criminals and physically 
diseased immigrants are barred from entrance and promptly 
returned to their own countries — we accept only that hu- 
man material which makes for the healthy growth of a 
country. Only those are welcome in the United States who 
will prove desirable as citizens, and these sooner or later 
are assimilated into our American ways and customs, be- 
coming a part of one grand whole in a Republic where all 
have an equal chance under equitable laws, and where op- 
pression is an unknown quantity. We do not claim to be 
immaculate politically or commercially, but all nations are 
more or less infected by political or commercial evils, nor 
parenthetically speaking, is England any exception to this 
rule. 'Those who live in glass houses should not throw 
stones.' As to blood and brawn in war, England has never 
in single combat whipped any antagonist of her size. She 
has always had the aid of allies when up against anything 
more formidable than Zulus. It required one hundred and 
eighty thousand trained English soldiers to overcome thirty 



36 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

thousand Boer farmers, and but for the assistance ren- 
dered by her foreign colonies the sturdy Boers who fought 
British aggression, even as we Americans fought it in '76, 
would have won out hands down against your 'blood and 
brawn' and added some more fancy knots to your Lion's 
caudal appendage. Even though conquered by a ratio of 
six Englishmen to one Boer, the Boers taught the English a 
lesson that every child learns when it picks up a hot poker, 
and although no other nation interfered, none approved 
your meddling politics in South Africa. Waterloo was won 
by Prussians, not by English ; and Blucher, not Wellington, 
was the real hero of Napoleon's overthrow. England grabs 
everything within her reach, whether gold or glory, and 
always from weaker hands. The Irish are England's true 
heroes — your best fighters to-day are Irishmen. Lord 
Roberts, who saved England in the Boer war, is an Irish- 
man ; Lord Kitchener, your greatest soldier and tactitian, is 
an Irishman, and so is Admiral Beresford, and so are 
Baden-Powell, McDonald, Killy-Kenny, Butler and scores 
of other famous fighters and leaders who have brought 
honor and glory to the British arms — all Irishmen. Your 
Irish soldiers are in the front rank of England's army 
to-day, and are graciously permitted by royalty to wear the 
green shamrock on St. Patrick's Day, which within the 
recollection of the present generation was once a hanging 
offence ! My friend, much may be said to the credit of both 
America and England, and on the contrary many things 
may be said to their discredit also, but in any parallel be- 
tween the nations on the latter score, America has little to 
fear and England much. England is jealous of America's 
growth, wealth, prosperity and progress, likewise her prox- 
imity to Canada and the Canadian approval of all things 
American — and as when you scratch a Russian you find a 
Tartar, so when you scratch the feverish English affection 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 37 

for America, as to-day manifested, you will find the yel- 
low jealousy underneath. These are not questions of 
opinion, but of fact, and the facts speak for themselves. 
There will come a day of reckoning for England, and there 
will be few mourners at the funeral of her factitious hopes 
and glories. For when that day shall come England for 
once will have to fight a man of her size!" 

One of the most popular and widely-sung of England's 
patriotic songs is entitled, ''Soldiers of the Queen." The 
entire theme is self-laudatory and openly boastful of Britain 
and its army, but there is one line in particular that never 
fails to bring a smile to those conversant with England's 
war history. The line reads, ''And when they say we've 
always won," the reason for this alleged success being given 
in the line following, "We're soldiers of the Queen." Ask 
an Englishman what is meant by this "always won" and 
where it occurred. Certainly it was not in America, for 
not even against her small American colonies was England's 
might successful, nor did she stand up in fair combat, but 
bought the aid of Hessian mercenaries and even allied her- 
self with Indian savages, to whom were paid English boun- 
ties for scalps of American men and women ! But England 
did not win — on the contrary she was turned out of the 
country for good and all, and later on when England again 
opposed the United States in the war of 1812 and again 
with Indians as allies, once more she was defeated. These 
trifling incidents are apparently forgotten or overlooked 
when English throats so lustily proclaim that boastful 
"always won." 

With the memory of England's past hostility toward 
America, exhibited both treacherously and openly — of her 
jealous hatred shown both at home and abroad — the infamy 
of her hired Iroquois butchers and of murdered and scalped 
Massachusetts settlers — with such memories still fresh in 



38 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

American hearts, it is difficult to understand why England 
pats herself so publicly on the back and gives voice to such 
braggart and easily disproved sentiments. 

Even her boast of sea-supremacy was badly punctured 
by the Dutch Admiral Van Tromp, who is said to have fired 
round, Dutch cheeses at the English fleet when his cannon- 
balls had given out. At all events the English fleet was de- 
feated, and the doughty Van Tromp paraded up and down 
the English Channel with a broom at his masthead in token 
of his victorious sweeping of England's sea. There is no 
enormous painting in the National Gallery at London to 
commemorate this fact, but the Royal Palace at Amsterdam 
has a particularly fine collection of English battle-flags that 
have been captured from John Bull at odd times, present- 
ing a valuable object lesson to anyone interested in Dutch 
buzz-saws. 

"Everbody claims to have won Waterloo," wrote Blucher 
to his King after the fight was over, which showed how 
little conceit was in the man who has been so libelled in the 
British press of a century ago. Innumerable authors, the 
Duke of Wellington among them, agree that it was Blucher 
and his Prussian Grenadiers who, arriving in the nick of 
time, made the deciding charge. The heavy rain of the 
preceding day and night, and its continuance all that morn- 
ing, made the roads almost impassable for artillery and 
heavy cavalry, while the Grenadiers had to wade in thick, 
black, adhesive mud ankle-deep in forced marches in order 
to get to the battle-ground. Any pioneer or soldier knows 
what that means to wornout regiments and animals. Hence 
Blucher's belated arrival, which prompted the Iron Duke to 
repeatedly pull out his watch in nervous anxiety, and to ex- 
claim when at last he saw the begrimed men, some of them 
actually helping the horses to drag the cannon up the hills — 
men who despite such hardship and suffering at once got 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 39 

into line and gave battle, "Thank God, here is Blucher ; we 
are saved at last." 

There was glory enough on the field of Waterloo for all, 
so why begrudge the praise due to the man to whose lot it 
fell, unsought, to decide the day. Blucher it was who won 
the battle of Waterloo, although he did not fight all through 
the day as Napoleon did against the combined armies of 
England and her allies. 

These statements are not made in a spirit of unfriendli- 
ness to England, but simply as references to facts — facts 
that are sufficiently plentiful and speak for themselves every- 
where except in English text-books. Here is an extract 
from a story entitled "Thicker Than Blood," published in 
Adventure, under date of March, 191 1, which is certainly 
to the point: 

"Sooner or later," he said, "when an Englishman talks of war, he 
will speak of Waterloo. Why, I never can understand. Other 
nations, when they boast of victories, speak of battles that they 
have won — if not against odds, at least single-handed. A German 
can boast of Sedan, a Frenchman of Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena or 
Montmirail, where the odds were six to one against them. Small 
nations — there is not one among them that cannot tell of some heroic 
struggle against a stronger oppressor. But you English can only 
speak of Waterloo, where the allies were two and a half to one 
against the French, and even in Wellington's army three-fifths of 
the troops were Dutch, Belgians and Hanoverians. Your own allies 
outnumbered you five to one, yet you English take all the credit and 
boast forever of Waterloo! Why? Why? Shall T tell you? It 
is because that in the history of modern times you have never 
fought alone or against odds ! It is the same story — in Spain, at 
Waterloo, in the Crimea. You seek to exalt your own glory by 
throwing mud upon the friends who fought by your side ! Why do 
you not speak of battles that you have won, if not against stronger 
numbers, at least alone? Because you have none to boast of! I 
pity you. England, great and powerful as she is, cannot tell of a 
single battle that she has won against an equal enemy alone and 



40 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

single-handed. You may be great upon the sea, but you are su- 
premely pitiful on land." 

The British officers had listened at first with contempt and then 
with growing rage. The Captain of the Ennistymons would have 
interrupted him, but the Boer continued with a passionate bitterness : 

"You are right in what you say of South Africa. The war is 
over here, or will be soon. Even now Kruger may have gone to 
Europe, and the Boers will not stand up and fight. I have seen 
places evacuated with scarcely a shot fired, that were wellnigh im- 
pregnable. They feared to be flanked. It is easy to flank a foe 
when you are ten to his one. But do not boast of it! If there is 
glory here in South Africa, it is not for you, who are the victors. 
And do not boast of Waterloo or slander the Dutch who were your 
allies there — you have never won a battle alone or won one against 
odds " 

Rafferty's Captain interrupted him. 

"You are an American?" he asked with bitter scorn. 

The bearded man raised his head proudly. "I am !" he answered. 

"Well, what great battles has your country ever fought? Where 
have you ever fought a battle such as Waterloo?" 

The eyes of the bearded man shot flame and he waved his 
clenched fist in a gesture of pride. 

"Forty-seven years ago to-day," he said, "we fought a battle 
where the casualties were practically the same as at Waterloo. 
There were no allies. It was American against American, and the 
weaker in numbers was beaten. But the battle was not decisive. 
No ! There were a half-dozen before it and a half-dozen more that 
followed, that were only a trifle less bloody, and the war was not 
decided until the weaker side was completely exhausted. There was 
a war — a war is which every able-bodied man was a soldier — a war 
that cost over a million lives and took four years to finish ! No 
nation in the world save the French can tell of one like it. There 
you would have found men who would stand up and fight!" 

It is a generally accepted fact that the English force. un- 
der General Buller was practically beaten and rapidly be- 
coming demoralized when the fortune of war suddenly 
turned in favor of the English under a new commander, 
Lord Roberts. But it is not so generally known that the 
German Emperor, despite his famous telegram to President 




A Bit of Cheshire 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 41 

Kruger expressing cordial sympathy with the Boers in their 
desperate struggle, is said to have furnished to England a 
plan of campaign prepared by German military experts, 
which plan being duly followed by Lord Roberts, secured 
victory for England. This remarkable extension of the 
olive branch, coupled with such enormously valuable assist- 
ance to England in her extremity, not only aroused a whirl- 
wind of wrath in Germany, but has been requited by the 
English people with a jealousy and cordial suspicion sur- 
prisingly in contrast with the expected grateful appreciation. 
A war between Germany and England would embroil 
nearly all the rest of Europe, and whatever the outcome 
would inevitably plunge both these countries into financial 
ruin. England is even now staggering under a weight of 
taxation which with the added and ever-increasing cost of 
naval defence must result either in national liquidation or 
an internal revolt. There are only two classes in England, 
the very rich and the very poor. Each class is becoming 
restive under the heavy burden. Germany has not yet 
reached this limit of her financial resources, but is steadily 
nearing it. Her fleet is rapidly approaching the prescribed 
war-standard, however, and then — perhaps an Armageddon, 
but in any event the almost certain overthrow of England. 
That is the prophecy to-day of some of the wisest heads in 
Europe, and looking still further afield, in view of the steady 
equipment and military standardizing of China and Japan, 
yet another and even more foreboding prophecy might be 
made as to probable changes on the world-map of the twen- 
tieth century. Japan has already shown her mettle. China 
is awakening from the sleep of centuries and slowly becom- 
ing conscious of a gigantic strength that in mere overwhelm- 
ing numbers would render her practically invincible, and the 
white race may yet be forced to meet the yellow in a life 
and death grapple for supremacy. 



42 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

As a "tail-piece" illustrating this prevailing English habit 
of vainglorious horn-blowing, and in view of the unmerci- 
ful walloping that a delighted and appreciative world may 
some day see administered to an obstreperous English 
school-bully by a healthy and growing German fellow-pupil, 
I submit the following tin-trumpet boast clipped from an 
English publication called Vanity Fair. And the really 
amusing part of it is that the English people believe it ! 

The result of a war between Germany and England would be the 
destruction of the German Navy within a fortnight if it dared to 
put to sea, which we very much doubt. The consequence of the 
destruction or blockade of the German Navy would be that we 
should annex about three hundred millions sterling of German sea- 
borne commerce, and add most of it permanently to our own assets. 

Isn't it delicious ? And this is the nation that was in such 
a frenzy of apprehension and alarm only a few months ago 
oVer a mysterious object which occasionally passed overhead 
after dark, and was denounced by the English newspapers 
as a German airship spying upon England ! Half the entire 
population went about by day with one eye cocked aloft in 
anticipation of a Limburger attack, and scanning the 
heavens by night in dread of aerial bombs and other ex- 
plosives, "made in Germany." One day the scare was ended 
by the discovery that the mysterious airship was only an 
advertising dodge, a balloon sent up by an enterprising busi- 
ness concern in order to call attention to its marmalade or 
cheap false teeth, or something equally important to the 
British public, and the roar of laughter that followed was 
almost world-wide, the episode being immensely enjoyed 
by everybody except John Bull. The English did not laugh, 
and a great many nervous people there are not yet entirely 
convinced and still scan the starry heavens for German 
bogie-men. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 43 

Apropos of the advertising balloon and as further evi- 
dencing the British apprehension of Zeppelin invaders, still 
more recently appeared the following in the New York 
Times of February 25, 1913: 

AIRSHIP ONLY VENUS? 

One Theory in Regard to Apparition that is 
Frightening England. 

{Special Cable to the New York Times.) 

London, Feb. 25. — Further reports of a mysterious air- 
ship seen at night come from Hull. The suggestion is now 
made that a certain light in the western sky, seen nightly 
and taken for an airship's searchlight, is none other than 
the planet Venus, which for the past few nights has been 
shining brilliantly. 

And oh, Lud, as if all this were not sufficient to rattle 
Christian nerves, yet another rude national jar was occa- 
sioned by the landing one morning of a German regiment of 
infantry at the mouth of the river Trent — a jocose experi- 
ment for the purpose of ascertaining what kind of a coast 
defence England possessed, and at the same time give the 
soldiers an innocent picnic. This German regiment, as 
stated in the London papers, landed early in the morning, 
enjoyed their little outing, and sailed back to the Continent 
without having attracted the attention of a single coast- 
guard or anyone else, save a few indifferent farmers. The 
picnic party was unarmed and the landing was a joke, but 
it was regarded as a very shocking sort of joke by the 
English people when it finally dawned upon them, and some 
serious questions were asked in Parliament which later re- 
sulted in considerable annoyance to the near-sighted guard- 
ians of that particular portion of the British coastline. 



44 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

Apropos of Germany's dream of vast empire — its bold- 
ness, Birmarckian scope, and the forces and facts against 
it, it is well known that expansion is becoming more and 
more necessary to the Kaiser Land, while England is a 
looming obstacle with visions of German Channel control 
and of a German highway across Europe. There is 
the potential intervention of America to be considered, 
and also internal weaknesses of the Fatherland due to inter- 
German hatred. Witness the testimony of "Pan-German- 
ism," an important addition to literature by Prof. G. Usher, 
of Washington University, St. Louis. 

"For some years," writes Prof. Usher, "those at all 
familiar with international affairs have known that it was 
the custom in the German Navy to drink a toast "To the 
day." Many people have hugged to themselves with glee 
the 'secret' information that the officers were drinking to 
the day when war should be declared against England, but 
few indeed seem to have realized the splendor of the vision 
now before German eyes, or the international situation 
which makes victory seem so near as to send German blood 
coursing swiftly in the anticipation of triumph. The Ger- 
mans aim at nothing else than the domination of Europe 
and of the world by the Germanic race. One of the fun- 
damental errors of which idealists and advocates of peace 
have been often guilty is to treat this vast project as an 
unreality. In fact it is already half accomplished. 

It is literally true that Germany has become Bismarckian. 
'His heavy spirit has settled upon it. It wears his scowl. It 
has adopted his brutality as it has his greatness. It has 
taken his criterion of truth, which is Germanic; his indif- 
ference to justice, which is savage ; his conception of a 
state, which is sublime. "This nation has forgotten God 
in its exaltation of the German race." Bombastic as these 
phrases are, they yet convey some notion of the militant 
spirit which has been aroused. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 45 

When Li Hung Chang first learned from Bismarck these 
plans, he was skeptical. But before his brief stay in Ger- 
many was over he wrote in his diary, "From all that I have 
seen I am more than ever convinced that the Kaiser and 
Prince Bismarck meant what they said when they averred 
that the German Empire was destined to become a dominant 
factor in Europe." 

Nor is it ambition alone that urges Germany to expan- 
sion. The population has increased so rapidly that it is 
already difficult for efficient, well-trained men to secure any 
employment. Not only is the superficial area of the coun- 
try exhausted, but intensive scientific agriculture is speedily 
limiting the possibilities of the employment of more hands 
on the same acres or the further increase of the produce. 
Industry has grown at an enormous rate and the output 
from German factories is enormously in excess of the needs 
of even the growing population. Her exports per capita 
are $24 per year, as against England's $40 and France's 
$25, and she has not their exclusive colonial markets. Un- 
less some outlet can be found for the surplus population 
and a new and extensive market discovered for this enor- 
mous surplus production, prosperity will inevitably be suc- 
ceeded by bankruptcy. There will be more hands than there 
is work for, more mouths than there is food. < 

Already the boundaries of Germany in Europe have been 
pushed to their furthest extent. More territory can be 
added only at the expense of other nations, either of her 
powerful rivals, France and Russia, or of her weaker 
neighbors, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Sweden. Nor 
would the accession of such territory solve the difficulty. 
Europe is crowded. Germany must find some territory 
suitable for development by her own people which is not 
already choked with men and women. 



46 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

She is seeking the counterpart of the fertile plains of 
western Canada, of the rich valleys of northern Africa, 
where her people may build a new Germany whose exist- 
ence will strengthen her and not her rivals. But such a 
promised land, tenanted by native races only, is not to be 
found. Every really available spot is held by England, 
France or Russia. Germany can therefore obtain colonies 
suitable for her purposes only at the expense of these last. 
This is what is meant by the oft-reiterated statements that 
England, France and Russia are by their very existence 
inimical to Germany's welfare, and that if she is to escape 
ruin she must fight them. 

Among the facts marking England as the greatest ob- 
stacle in the path of Germany's legitimate growth is this: 
The English Channel is the only available safe passage- 
way for her merchants fleet. The voyage round the British 
Isles is long, and during the winter months positively dan- 
gerous even for steamships. Natural conditions therefore, 
by compelling Germany to use the Channel, force her to 
expose her commerce to assaults by the British fleets, so 
long as the latter control the Channel. Even if she should 
acquire colonies and a great market, she cannot really pos- 
sess them until she acquires a highroad to them safe from 
the attacks of her enemies. To this end the Germans con- 
sider perfectly feasible the construction of a great con- 
federation of states, including Germany, Austria, Hungary, 
the Balkan States and Turkey, which would control a great 
band of territory stretching southeast from the North Sea 
to the Persian Gulf. A railway from Constantinople to 
Bagdad would effectually tie the great trunk lines leading 
from the Rhine and Danube valleys to Constantinople and 
the Persian Gulf, and so establish a shorter route to India 
than that via Suez. Egypt, Syria, Arabia, Persia, India 
herself, would fall into German hands and be held safe from 
conquest by this magnificent overland route to the East. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 47 

As to the nations between the Fatherland and the Dream 
— Germany hates, disdains and despises England. For 
France and Russia she posseses a wholesome respect, 
mingled with fear but not with love. France she considers 
a strong man who has run his race and is now beginning 
to reach senility; Russia she looks upon as an uncouth 
stripling not yet conscious of his strength. The Germans 
do not regard England as really great. They think her 
naval power the result of accident, not of genius, and that it 
has rested chiefly upon the accident of geography and 
geology. England has been strong by reason of others' 
weakness, by the use of others' resources, by the spoils of 
conquest. The British Empire never has possessed cohe- 
sion; never has had a common, vital, economic or geo- 
graphical interest; has always been a sham and glittering 
generality whose unreality has remained concealed only by 
reason of the inability of other nations to perceive it. To 
the German, England's economic strength has been changed 
into fatal economic weakness. She no longer produces suf- 
ficient food to supply her population for a month; her 
supply of coal and wood is diminishing; the raw material to 
build or maintain a fleet she cannot produce, neither raw 
material needed to supply her looms and factories. 

Suppose now, that the German fleet should secure control 
of the Channel for a brief time only, would not England be 
starved into submission? Would not her looms soon stop 
from lack of material to feed them? Would not her whole 
artisan class be thrown out of work? Would she not be 
bankrupted as a nation by the simple loss of the control of 
the sea? The German emphasizes the further point that 
although the boasted millions of population, the countless 
acres of territory, the stupendous wealth of the British 
Empire, are real — they are not England's. The English, 
it is reasoned, never conquered India. The Hindoos con- 



48 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

quered themselves, with EngHsh assistance, through their 
own dividing jealousies and antipathies. Now with the 
democratic impulse spreading from Europe into the East, 
the Egyptian, Persian and Hindoo are dreaming of a new 
land from which foreigners shall be excluded, of a splendid 
nation composed solely of natives, administering their own 
country in their own interests, independent of all. 

To attain its ends, Germany does not want literally to 
fight. She wants the results without the disadvantages of 
war. To German thinking the war is already in progress, 
and will continue to be fought with weapons infinitely more 
deadly than cannon and small arms — economic crises. They 
propose to destroy England and France, not in the field, but 
in the counting-house and in the factory, annihilating the 
bases upon which in the long run, armies must depend for 
maintenance. Nevertheless a great navy is essential, and 
so is an army, large enough to prevent Russia and France, 
by reason of its existence, from thinking of war. The army 
is the only barrier between Germany and her enemies. It 
takes the place of the English Channel, of the Alps, of the 
Pyrenees. And it must be large enough to enable Germany, 
in case of war, to invade England without so much expos- 
ing herself to France or Russia as to invite an assault from 
either or both. 

The greatest element in opposition to this Teutonic dream 
is the potential intervention of the United States, with its 
tremendous resources, its commanding economic position 
and its practical invulnerability against any force of would- 
be invaders. In case of a war begun by Germany or 
Austria for the purpose of executing Pan-Germanism, the 
United States, it is expected, would promptly declare in 
favor of England and France and would do her utmost to 
assist them. The United States possesses the very resources 
needed to make the economic position of England and 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 49 

France fairly impregnable. Allied with her they could not 
be starved into submission, nor bankrupted by lack of ma- 
terials to keep their looms running. In addition, she pos- 
sesses the second greatest steel manufactory in the world, 
which owns the patents and secret processes upon which 
Bessemer steel depends, a product surpassed for war ma- 
terial only by the Krupp steel. Whatever happens in 
Europe, America can continue to produce raw materials and 
finished products needed or required at home or abroad, 
and would further provide an enormous market in time of 
war for the sale of such manufactured goods as England 
and France could produce. 

The starving of England, the depriving her factories of 
raw materials, the cutting off of her supplies for the main- 
tenance of a fleet, all depend on the ability of the German 
navy to outmanoeuvre the English and get possession of the 
Channel in such fashion that a pitched battle would be 
necessary to dislodge it, or upon its ability to defeat the 
English fleet in the first place in so decisive a manner that 
assistance could not come from the Mediterranean or from 
America in time to avert the catastrophe. 

In careful consideration of which, the discerning reader 
will easily account for the milk in the English cocoanut, and 
in view of the added necessity for America's goodwill, there 
is also afforded ample explanation of the hair on the ex- 
terior portion. 

Referring once more to the weather, when you go out for 
a walk, or a Museum, or even just a newspaper, take an 
umbrella. It rains easily in the British Isles, whether be- 
cause there is so much water surrounding them or because 
the English use so much tea that the Lord has to oftener 
call their attention to water as a beverage is immaterial so 
long as the fact remains. Four out of every five people 
you meet carry an umbrella — the other doesn't own one or 



50 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

else doesn't mind the wet. For instance it rained on the 
day we went to the Tower. We were in a hansom, how- 
ever, when the rain began to fall, and through the lowered 
glass we gazed out at the deluge and troubles of other peo- 
ple with calm and unruffled emotions. The hansom finally 
stopped at the Tower gate and the cabby remarked cheer- 
fully from his dripping perch, '' 'Ere y'are, Guv'nor!" The 
cabby was quite correct — there we were ! The sombre old 
Tower loomed up behind its enclosing high wall, wearing 
the same grim, expectant look for us that it wore for the 
hapless and unwilling visitors in the merry old days of King 
Richard and the rest. But we wanted to get inside out of 
the wet, while they would probably have preferred any kind 
of deluge outside to the reception awaiting them within. 
Furthermore, having got that far, we were going in any- 
how. So spreading our faithful "gamps," or umbrellas, and 
regretting the absence of our "galoshes" or rubbers, we 
passed through the sentinelled gate to a bird-cage where 
tickets of admission to the Tower attractions are sold, and 
then ambled through the pelting rain and mud down an 
alley enclosed by high walls, to an archway guarded by 
soldiers, where we fondly expected to find the Tower en- 
trance and a shelter. Not so, however. We found at right 
angles to the previous alley another one like it only much 
longer, and the rain was coming down in that alley like ajl 
the proverbial cats, dogs and great guns combined ! Com- 
pared with that cataract of water in the alley, the rain we 
had already waded through was a little summer shower. 
We grinned and bore it, or rather the soldiers grinned and 
we bore it, and then we threw away dignity, picked up our 
skirts, metaphorically speaking, and ran like the devil for 
the other end of that alley ! We reached the haven at last, 
closed our soaked umbrellas, and ruefully surveyed our 
drenched and reproachful-looking silk "top 'ats" from the 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 51 

brims of which little cascades were falling on the historic 
pavement trod by Lady Jane Grey, Lord Raleigh and others 
who had arrived under even more of a cloud than our- 
selves. We were allowed to look at the Crown Jewels in- 
side an iron-barred cage that would have held an elephant, 
and were in turn carefully watched by several guards and 
other slaves of monarchy lest we might somehow entice a 
Royal crown through the bars, or maybe just a two- foot 
salt-cellar. But there was something that interested us far 
more than the display of Royal gew-gaws — the sun was 
shining ! It had resumed business as soon as we got in out 
of the rain. We emerged from the Crown Jewel district, 
to the evident relief of the guards, splashed to the parade- 
ground with our closed umbrellas, ransomed from a coat- 
room which they had partially flooded, and gazed up at 
the turquoise-blue sky and then at our still dripping silk 
hats. And "it remembers me," as Virgil says, that we 
spoke no word. 

There was once a farmer, widely known for the range 
and profuseness of his profane vocabulary, and one day as 
he was driving along with a load of hay some bad boys set 
fire to the rear end. The farmer had barely time to unhitch 
his horses — then he saw his hay and wagon disappear in 
smoke. To the surprise of his neighbors anticipating an 
oratorical flight of unprecedented fluency and luridness, the 
farmer said nothing whatever. Finally someone observed, 
"You take it purty easy — 'most anybody'd swear consid'ble 
hard." The old man walked once around the ruins, then 
said impressively, "Durned if I can do the subject justice!" 

So if anybody should ask the conundrum, "Why is a 
drowned silk hat like a load of hay on fire?" the answer 
is, "Neither could we !" 

Those who have wandered through the old palace- 
fortress, this gloomy and forbidding royal prison shut in 



52 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

by thick walls, wide encircling moat, and the river itself, 
with the world outside "so near and yet so far," will need 
no description of its varied attractions to the sight-seer. 
The chapel with its historic dead, the stone-carven prison 
cells of Beauchamp Tower and those far worse cells hid- 
den in dark passages underground, the torture chamber in 
the cellars, that small square space for executions beside 
the chapel, the ancient Armoury decorated with fantastic 
designs made from weapons of war and containing long 
ranges of guns, spears, swords, relics and suits of armor 
for man and horse, the fatal block and axe used in behead- 
ing so many noble personages, the deep gashes in the wood 
that tell their own tragic story — all these things once seen 
can never be forgotten, nor yet the dreary recital of Tower 
statistics droned by one of the aged retainers, or "Beef- 
eaters." On the other hand, those who have missed such 
opportunity for absorbing useful knowledge directly at the 
fount, will find in Baedeker a full and entertaining descrip- 
tion of everything, together with a lot more about London 
which I have either purposely dodged or maybe forgotten. 
Besides, I am a good deal bothered because I cannot for the 
life of me recollect the name of the lady who refused to be 
beheaded and finally sat down on the block, to the intense 
annoyance of the headsman. What was that woman's name? 
I lost a good deal of time one day hunting up a scrap of 
poetry that indirectly appealed to my subconscious some- 
thing or other, and I am going to lay that little scrap in here 
between two leaves, as it were, so that I shall know where 
to look for it next time. It conveys a good moral to anyone 
who knows what good morals are. 

A FABLE. 

The hen remarked to the muley-cow, 

As she cackled her daily lay 
(That is, the hen cackled), "It's funny how 

I'm good for an egg a day. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 53 

I'm a fool to do it, for what do I get? 

My food and my lodging. My! 
But the poodle gets that — he's the household pet, 
And he never has laid a single egg yet — 

Not even when eggs were high." 

The muley-cow remarked to the hen, 

As she masticated her cud 
(That is, the cow did), "Well, what then? 

You quit and your name is mud. 
I'm good for eight gallons of milk each day, 

And I'm given my stable and grub; 
But the parrot gets that much, anyway — 
All she can gobble — and what does she pay? 

Not a dribble of milk, the dub!" 

But the hired man remarked to the pair, 
"You get all that's comin' to you. 
The poodle does tricks an' the parrot kin swear, 

Which is better th'n you kin do. 
You're necessary, but what's the use 

O' bewailin' your daily part? 
You're bourgeois — workin's your only excuse; 
You can't do nothin' but jest produce — 

What them fellers does is Art !" 

If you should ever go to Scotland, you will see what is 
usually described under the head of athletics, as a "close 
race." Take your family plaid along, or if you haven't 
one buy a plaid shawl or a golf cape, and fly it on general 
principles. Next to "whuskey," the Scotch people love a 
plaid and a bag-pipe. I drew the line at a bag-pipe, but I 
sported a plaid shawl that made most of the Scotch popula- 
tion sit up and shade their eyes. It was a Highland plaid, 
and what it lacked in blue and green splash was made up 
by passionate bursts of crimson. I got the original pattern 
from a colored postcard showing a bag-piper standing on a 
mountain crag in a gale of wind. His kilt was a scanty 



54 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

affair, like a ballet-skirt only more so, revealing a vast ex- 
panse of hairy legs and terminating much too suddenly 
around the Southern frontier, being in fact violently abrupt. 
The scarf, tartan, breeks, and other things helped out the 
moral effect a little, but nevertheless I felt sad as I reflected 
on other people's Scotch fore-bares (the spelling is inten- 
tional) going about in all kinds of v^eather with prac- 
tically only a bag-pipe and a rainbow between their volup- 
tuous curves and a hard winter. Further, although the 
plaid had a warm and ruddy look about it, like a vegetable 
hash painted by Turner, I was informed that it carried 
more itch to the square foot than any other plaid in Scot- 
land Yard. With such a braw and bonny checkerboard, a 
Buchanan breath, chilblains on your knees, and an occa- 
sional "Hoot, mon, hoot," one can go all over Scotland in 
disguise and feel entirely at home among the Sandys and 
Daffydowndillys of a more or less diffident and financially- 
reserved population. The typical canny Scot does not 
scatter his wealth around in wasteful expenditure. He will 
squeeze a penny until its maddening screams can be heard 
blocks away before he will part with it, and nearly die of 
thirst rather than give up the price of a glass. A visiting 
Scotchman who had been entertained in London by an 
American with taxi-cab rides, dinners, theatres, innumer- 
able cigars, and other life-saving auxiliaries, was shaking 
hands in farewell when his conscience smote him and he 
broke out, *'Mon, yeeVe been generous to me, but I'll nae 
let ye do all the spending. I'll just match ye to see who 
pays for a wee parting drop." 

Someone has stated that it requires a surgical operation 
to get a joke through the skull of a Scotchman. But there 
are others equally impervious of comprehension, and resi- 
dent not far south of the land of thistles and Scotch "whus- 
key." Some of these officiate in the humble capacity of 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 55 

servitors in palaces, museums and public parks — other oc- 
cupy higher stations, being even numbered among the no- 
bility and attendant satellites of royalty. We love them all. 
They are glorious company, and in their presence life be- 
comes a rosy sequence of happy, happy hours — except to 
them. Par example, as Voltaire says, we visited St. Pauls 
Cathedral, and after one thing and another, including a walk 
up to the top of the dome, from the effects of which I 
shall never permanently recover, the attendant showed us a 
lot of glass cases containing uniforms and other ancient 
wardrobe — relics of bygone kings, warriors and many fa- 
mous men. "This 'ere cooat," said he, "was worn by King 
George the Third during 'is reign." "Is it a mackintosh?" 
enquired John. "Ho, no, sir," replied the solemn-faced at- 
tendant, "w'y would it be a mackintosh, sir?" "Oh, I 
thought you said something about a rain." That attendant 
will never know what hit him — he simply began his song 
about the next article of interest. 

Another American, after viewing the massive mausoleum 
of Lord Nelson, in the crypt of St. Pauls, was listening with 
interest to the closing peroration of the guide. " 'Ere 'e 
rests, sir. 'Is body was henclosed hin a hoaken carsket, 
which was next henclosed hin a leaden carsket, which was 
next henclosed hin a steel carsket, hall of which was finally 
henclosed hin this 'ere bronze and marble sarcophagus." 
"Well," said the American, "I guess you've got him safe all 
right. If he ever gets out of there, you cable me at my 
expense." 

Westminster Abbey, among all the host of London's great 
attractions, was the loadstone that drew my wandering steps 
most often, and from its time-scarred cloisters paved with 
burial stones dating back to the tenth century, down to the 
latest marble memorial on the walls of the great Abbey 
itself, everything breathes its deathless story of fame and 



56 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

history. To the wanderer over Europe, all Cathedrals, like 
"all coons," look alike, with their sombre interiors, great 
arches, stained-glass windows, marble or wood-carved 
reredos and choir-stalls, and ever and anon the great deep- 
toned bell, or silver-throated chimes, sounding the hours far 
above. But Westminster Abbe5^ has a charm which is all its 
own and possesses a wealth of historic treasure for those 
who know the secret places of its keeping and how to get 
there, far apart from the highways and byways of the holi- 
day tourist crowd who tramp back and forth with eyes that 
see nothing beyond the little described in the guide-books, 
and comprehend that but faintly. There is so much of rev- 
erential interest in that massive pile of ancient and modern 
masonry, that no human mind can retain more than a tithe 
in complete remembrance. The "Poet's Corner," a favorite 
spot for rest and reverie, the superb marble memorials of 
brave men and braver deeds on land and sea, the Royal 
Tombs and Chapels of the early Kings of England, exquisite 
in marble lace-work, the "crowning-stone" on which every 
King from Ethelred has sat, the spear and saddle of King 
Henry the Fifth pendant from the lofty arch above his 
marble resting-place, the rich interior of the great edifice 
itself, the ancient Chapter House, the Deanery and velvet 
lawns outside — all these are things to see and seeing, mar- 
vel. But around the cloisters and crumbling Chapter House 
of the Benedictine founders of the Abbey in 6i6 there lin- 
gers the spell of ages gone, of knights and armor, and those 
earlier days of England when heroes of the Church Militant 
made history, and in comparison with whom the present- 
day exponents of both State and Church appear like 
pigmies. 

Driving back to the Langham Hotel, our hansom over- 
took on Regent Street a tiny coster-shay and moke — in 
other words, a two-wheeled cart drawn by a midget donkey, 




The London "Bobby" 




The Coster Donkey-Shay 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 57 

mostly ears, and driven by a coster arrayed in the typical 
coster costume, which is similar to that worn by Mexican 
vaqueros and plentifully sprinkled with large silver-plated 
buttons. Regent Street is the fashionable shopping prom- 
enade, the sidewalk ever thronged with the beauty and 
chivalry of London town, and "sassiety" thus promenading 
received that day a jarring shock to see a despised donkey- 
shay draw up to the curb and the socially-impossible coster 
engaged in conversation by a top-'atted swell who alighted 
from the hansom aforesaid. The conversation was preceded 
by the passage of a coin to the coster's pocket and was very 
brief. 

"Here is a half-crown for you. Now I want you to drive 
to the Langham Hotel and stop directly in front of the main 
entrance, wait there while I go inside for a few moments ; 
and when I come out you will receive another half-crown, 
and you can then drive away. See?" 

"All roight, me Lord." 

Then the little donkey patted along up Regent Street, the 
coster unconcernedly sitting on his shaft and smoking his 
pipe, followed by the hansom and a broad-grinned cabby. 
The subsequent proceedings are still remembered by uni- 
formed officials and attendants of that eminently select and 
dignified hostelry, but referred to only in whispers, and the 
dates of many important events connected with the Lang- 
ham are approximately fixed by said attendants as being 
just before or just after that awful day "when Mr. 'ills 
bought the donkey-shy." And this is the tale thereof : 

Imagine the highly-objectionable donkey outfit trotting 
around the Regent Street corner into Portland Place, sacred 
to wealth and fashion, with its waiting private equipages 
and powdered, gold-laced and be-wigged coachmen and 
footmen awaiting noble Lords and masters. Picture the 
amazement of these pampered and haughty servants, the 



58 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

huge enjoyment of an occasional cabby, and the helpless 
rage and horror of the gorgeously-uniformed hotel attaches 
standing beneath the porte cochere to receive those favored 
guests who arrive in carriages. Never before was a donkey- 
shay among such fashionable and high-toned vehicles, or a 
coster mingling in such upper-class society. Squarely in 
front of the main entrance to the hotel, and at the exact 
point where the sacred carpet stretches from curbstone up 
the marble stairway to the rotunda, the donkey-shay pulled 
up, and all the assembled multitude held its breath to wit- 
ness its instant annihilation by the outraged guardians of 
the portaj. But lo, a stylish hansom stopped directly behind 
the coster-cart, and with uplifted hand I saved the coster's 
life. 

"That donkey-shay belongs to me, Craig," I said to the 
gigantic ex-Guardsman. "Let it stand there while I ar- 
range matters at the hotel office." 

Now Craig was a man of judgment, had received much 
tender of silver coin at odd moments, and had a wholesome 
respect for the source thereof. Therefore despite his awful 
dilemma, Craig touched his hat as usual, but immediately 
disappeared into his little guardhouse out of sight. 

At the hotel desk I was greeted by the clerk with his 
eternal "Aw, Mr. Hills, back again, sir?" 

"Yep," said I, "and by the way, you know we are leaving 
here for New York shortly." 
"Yessir, sorry to hear it, sir." 

"Yes," I continued, "and I have bought a little donkey- 
shay to carry with me. It will be quite a novelty over there, 
won't it?" 

"How extraordinary — my word, it will indeed." 
"And — er — I have the donkey-shay out in front here, 
and " 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 59 

"What's that, Mr. Hills?" exclaimed the shocked official. 
"A donkey-shay in front of the hotel ! God save us, this 
won't do at all !" and he reached for the bell that calls the 
porter. 

"Hold on there; wait a minute," said I. "You don't un- 
derstand. I desire to arrange for the care of the donkey 
and shay until I leave for America." 

"Certainly, certainly," perspired the clerk. "I will have 
them removed to the hotel mews (English for stable) at 
once, sir, at once. My soul — in front of the hotel — this is 
terrible !" And again I stopped his bell-call for help. 

"Please wait a moment," said I. "I wish to have a hotel 
room for the little donkey, next to mine if possible, where 
I can see that he is properly cared for ; and you can send the 
shay to the mews." 

"A room for the donkey! God bless my soul, I never 
heard of such a thing in all my life! It's impossible, Mr. 
Hills — absolutely unthinkable," gasped the clerk. "Will you 
please allow me to call " 

"Not on your life — call nothin'. I want that moke up- 
stairs and there is no reason why he shouldn't he upstairs. 
He's only a little fellow, all ears, and he can sleep on the 
bed and I'll pay the damages. There's a couple of pugs, a 
parrot and a Pomeranian upstairs, and the moke isn't much 
bigger and wouldn't hurt a fly. If you don't like him out 
front, hurry up and find him a room inside !" 

By this time a crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, peo- 
ple were gazing from windows, there was a Babel of laugh- 
ter and jeers from the bewigged and bespangled gentry on 
the carriages in Portland Place, and Craig, purple with in- 
dignation and excitement, had emerged from his retreat 
to restrain a policeman from apoplexy. The coster sat on 
his wagon-shaft, indifferently smoking his pipe. The moke 
was calmly working his long ears forward and back, pon- 
dering the situation. 



6o JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

"Very well," said I. "If I can't board the donkey up- 
stairs, I'll quit the hotel myself," and in high indignation I 
descended the marble stairway to the sidewalk, approached 
the coster, and said, "Here's your half-crown. Drive like 
the devil." 

"Jesso, Guv'nor," he responded, with a slight smile, and 
with a cluck to the moke, the little shay described a wide 
circle round into Regent Street again, the crowd melted 
away, and I was left complaining to Craig and the "bobby" 
of the obstinacy of the hotel clerk, and receiving from both 
a labored and elaborate dissertation on the utter impossi- 
bility of my request. 

Later on I was favored with a long and dismal explana- 
tion by the hotel management, full of polite regrets, to which 
I listened with varied emotions. I did not, however, allow 
myself to be entirely convinced of the excellence of the sev- 
eral arguments and reasons barring the moke from the hotel 
room next to mine, until far into the following day, when I 
permitted myself to become graciously appeased and smoked 
a cigar of peace and amity with the clerk, who was still 
feeble from shock. But never until Gabriel shall blow his 
horn and all things become known and understood of men, 
will the hotel people ever comprehend or even suspect that 
it was all a bluff and that I wouldn't have taken the moke 
as a gift — shay and all ! 

An Englishman who has resided in South Africa for 
some years, returning to England on a visit, states that 
English people live in a groove — that perhaps they like it, 
perhaps they do not know it, but being their ordinary en- 
vironment, they do not expect anything else. This is cer- 
tainly the impression gained, not only by Englishmen 
who have lived abroad for a time, but also by Americans 
who have visited England more than once. There is a dis- 
tinct groove in which life in England travels. The things 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 6i 

that were, still are, and seem likely to continue. The con- 
servatism, the conventionalism, the iron grip of habit and 
custom and precedent are noticeable to the returning pil- 
grim, by contrast. England, provincial England, which is 
the real and perhaps the best England, alters but little. The 
changes one notices are but little eddies on the placid sur- 
face of English life. The main current alters neither in 
pace or direction. You will find the people doing the 
same things, saying the same things, thinking the same 
things, and going along in the same old groove. They may 
be roller-skating and playing golf instead of ping-pong and 
croquet — these are but the eddies. In the body politic there 
is hardly a perceptible change. 

There are many influences which force the home-staying 
English to live in this groove. They have a wonderful 
security of tenure in their employment. There is nothing 
to lead them to anticipate change. There is nothing they 
dread more than change. Society experiences no violent 
upheaval. Of course there is a leaven of exceptionally en- 
ergetic and enterprising men who are not satisfied with a 
groove. But the majority are perfectly satisfied. They are 
the willing adherents of a caste system as strong and far- 
reaching as that of India. 

In that state of life to which it has pleased Providence to 
call them, they are happy to remain. Whether a man be- 
gins as a shop assistant or a shipping-clerk, he rarely 
seems to arrive at the conclusion that he could do some- 
thing else better or more profitably. Should he be assailed 
by doubts, he suppresses them as signs of a discontented 
mind. He trains himself to acquiesce in what is. That his 
vocation is underpaid and overcrowded are mere facts to 
be deplored and accepted, not conditions to be removed. He 
decides it is his lot, and settles down to it. He slips into a 
particular groove, and English society tends to keep him 
there. 



62 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

This curious form of conservatism produces a certain 
amount of inefficiency. To continue as one began calls for 
no great amount of effort. Complete contentment is not 
an incentive to exertion. The English youth is more often 
than not content to know that his father was a clerk, and 
his father's father was a clerk, and that he will be a clerk — 
and not a very good one at that. Thousands of English lads 
learn enough to obtain a small position and with this success 
are satisfied. They never learn more to go any further. 
They get into a groove. 

The tendency breeds idlers. In no part of the British 
Empire but in England are seen so many young men who do 
absolutely nothing. They live upon their parents. It is 
understood that they are studying for this, or thinking about 
going in for that. They eat, and amuse themselves, and 
sleep. They cannot be farm laborers — in England. They 
must not soil their hands — in England. They could not 
possibly do anything menial — in England. Fancy that ! 

In England nine-tenths of the lads of the middle classes 
look forward to nothing more than a seat at an office desk 
with a certain number of shillings a week, for a certain 
number of years. To attempt to do anything else would be 
to run the risk of social ostracism. A young man may loaf 
respectably on his family, but he must on no account start 
a business if it involves selling anything or producing any- 
thing with his hands. That would be bad form. It would 
be getting outside the groove. Thus for the great mass of 
people England holds no romance. The lad who thinks he 
could do something is not encouraged. Everything is cut 
and dried. Every class distinction is definitely marked. 
The whole weight of public opinion is against the smallest 
divergence from the ordinary rule. 

Now all this is radically wrong. The English principle 
which makes the eldest son the member of the family to be 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 63 

first considered, even in the middle class, his personal com- 
fort to precede even that of his mother and sisters, and 
v^hich permits the carrying of heavy hods of coal upstairs 
by frail women while strong husbands and sons look con- 
tentedly on, is to an American not only amazing but repul- 
sive. 'The son of the family must not soil his hands or de- 
mean himself by menial work." No, not even if his old 
mother or some other member of his worshipping family 
break her back under the burden. Therefore little con- 
sideration is extended to women in this respect by the 
British lords of creation, old or young. I have seen in 
Belgium a woman hitched into harness with a cow and pull- 
ing a plough or a harrow in the fields, while her lord and 
master held the reins and whip. You will not see this in 
England in this present year of grace, but you will see the 
woman given the burden there, every time. The fair white 
hands of the shopman, or clerk, or office employe, to which 
stratum belong the great bulk of the middle-class male 
workers, present a strong contrast to the hands of mother 
and sisters, reddened and seared by the hardest of house- 
work. True, there are servant-maids, or more properly 
speaking, female slaves, in most English households, whose 
work is even harder and more protracted than in families 
where servants are not employed at all. From daybreak to 
midnight the work of the "slavey" goes on eternally, and 
the miracle is that women do not weaken under the burden 
sooner than they do. On the coldest of winter mornings 
you will see the army of London maids, one in front of 
nearly every house, bare-armed and red-fisted, washing and 
scrubbing the front steps with dripping brushes, while you 
pass by shivering at the very thought. The same is true 
all over England every day in the week. Consider also the 
untold thousands of heavy hods of coal that are laboriously 
carried up two, three and' four flights of stairs day after 
day by panting mothers, sisters or housemaids. 



64 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

An Englishman never blacks his own boots. It is be- 
neath his august dignity. The female members of the 
household perform this menial labor, and if there are no 
serving-maids, then his mother or sisters do it for him and 
place the boots before his chamber door, scrupulously pol- 
ished for the day's wear. Comments or criticisms upon this 
peculiarity of the English male are entirely wasted : the 
English male can do no wrong, either in his own eyes or 
those of his female relations, and whatever appears wrong 
to other observers is stamped as quite proper by the royal 
seal of custom and approval. Would an able-bodied Amer- 
ican allow his mother or sister to black his boots? Thank 
God, no ! 

English maid-servants work and work hard for $ioo 
a year — about two dollars a week! An English writer, 
referring to the much-discussed servant question in Amer- 
ica, recalls the "excellent services he received from maids 
in private English homes." They were attractive, refined 
maids, too, and never, even under the most trying condi- 
tions, did they show impertinence or indifference. In the 
kitchen were posted these daily duties : 

RULES. 

Rise 6.15. Make kitchen fire and rake out fire boiler each day. 

Take up tea to bedrooms at 7 o'clock. 

Sweep and dust dining-room, also breakfast-room, light fire and 
lay breakfast. Run sweeper over hall mats and dust around. 

Take hot water up to all bedrooms at 7.45. 

Cook breakfast for 8.15. 

After breakfast take pail and hot water to empty slops, wipe 
down all washstands with basin cloth, make own bed, clear away 
breakfast and then wash down outside steps front and rear and 
shake door mats. 

Wash up and leave kitchen tidy for dinner preparations. 

Lay dinner for one o'clock, and after washing up and tidying 
kitchen, get dressed by three o'clock. 

Tea at 4.30. Wash all up after supper at 8.30, 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 65 

Dust down staircase every day. Clean boots. Clean knives after 
every meal, 

Sunday.— Rise at 7. Take tea by 7.30. Breakfast at 9. Dinner 
at 1. 15. 

Monday. — One week turn out drawing-room and the next week 
clean cellar and breakfast room. 

Tuesday. — One week back bedrooms, staircase and landing 
windows, rods, etc., and the next clean covers, tins, hall globes and 
windows inside. Wash over kitchen and scullery every week. 

Wednesday. — One week turn out dining-room and the next front 
bedroom. 

Thursday. — Clean china, pantry and kitchen, all pantry shelves and 
all the silver. If not all done, can finish in evening. 

Friday. — Get up a little earlier and thoroughly clean out flues, and 
black-lead grate before breakfast. Clean hall and pantry floors, 
kitchen and scullery drains and windows, and thoroughly clean gas 
stove. 

Saturday. — Clean bathroom and bath with sapolio, taps and all 
brass up and downstairs. Wash down back stairs every other 
,week. Sweep dining-room, using small brush and dustpan. Wash 
round all oilcloths before breakfast. 

The maid in this home was nearly thirty years of age, 
and had been with the family seven years. She had one 
night a week off — no afternoons. Her wages were twenty) 
pounds a year (about $8.00 a month), and rather than lose 
her, this Englishiman says naively in conclusion: "My 
cousins said they would give her twenty-one pounds a 
year." Think of that, ye Celtic queens of American house- 
hold service — a cent and a half a day advance ! Truly 
there are worse places than America ! 

I arrived at private lodgings in London on one occasion, 
and ascended to my rooms, leaving my exceptionally heavy 
trunk to be carried up by the cabby and some street helper. 
Imagine my feelings when I saw it being borne into the 
room by the maid and the frail little landlady ! Both were 
nearly overcome by the exertion and obliged to sit down 



66 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

for breath. The lazy cabman had driven away, and the 
English husband of the landlady looked placidly on without 
even offering to help his wife lift her end of the burden. 
I am afraid the frankness of my opinion, expressed to him 
personally and freely, tended considerably to prevent any 
possible friendliness between us after that. He probably 
had his private opinion of me, but I also had a private 
opinion of him which still remains fresh and green after 
the lapse of years. He must have been a mind-reader, for 
he certainly kept out of my way afterward. Many a time 
have I taken a hod of coal from a breathless maid and car- 
ried it across my room, to her intense amazement, and many 
a time have I denounced that English custom under which 
the male animals do the heavy looking-on, while their moth- 
ers, sisters or the hard-worked maids, carry the burdens, 
exactly as their female ancestors carried burdens for the 
original brute ancestry of the male animals aforesaid. This, 
however, is only another form of the "groove" previously 
referred to, and although Englishmen "never, never, never 
will be slaves," according to one of their most loudly vocif- 
erated popular songs, they apparently have no objection 
whatever to their women serving in that capacity. 

All over Europe, to a more or less marked degree, is ob- 
served this indifference to woman and careless disregard of 
her pleasure or comfort. The general disposition is to class 
her with the working animals. Everywhere upon the Con- 
tinent you will meet women of the poorer class carrying 
heavy burdens upon their heads or backs, while men walk 
beside them encumbered only with a cheap cigarette. At 
the railway stations are women staggering under great bales 
and bags of household effects and other luggage, even little 
children being loaded like beasts of burden, while the head 
of the family puffs his tobacco smoke and follows on be- 
hind. You can see this lesson in Continental courtesy ex- 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 67 

emplified any day at the piers in New York even, on the 
arrival of steamships bringing emigrants. In Belgium, 
women drive the dog-teams which serve as milk-carts, and 
frequently the women pass the strap over their own shoul- 
ders and pull alongside the dogs to lighten the load. But 
never will you see a man do that. He thinks it is beneath 
him ! As a matter of fact, the man ought to be pulling in 
the harness, and the woman and the dogs sitting inside the 
cart enjoying both the ride and the spectacle. 

Everywhere the woman works and works hard, and re- 
ceives in return scant reward and scant consideration. In- 
deed, consideration of any kind toward woman is an ex- 
tremely threadbare proposition in Europe. Even respect is 
almost universally lacking, and it is a common saying that 
Americans are fools, because nowhere on earth are women 
so respected and well-treated as in America. Frenchmen 
are superlatively polite to woman, but do not respect her or 
believe her to be above improving an opportunity, and to a 
great extent this is the general attitude of Continental men 
toward all womankind. The occasional disfigurement of 
the male Continental countenance by the masculine Ameri- 
can fist may be traced to this prevailing false impression 
of women, more especially of American women, and the 
Latin race is slowly but surely having impressed upon both 
its ogling face and imperfect intellect a combined moral 
truth and lesson in manners. No wonder that the Old 
World looks longingly toward the New through the moist 
and grateful eyes of its tired and helpless female toilers. 
To most of them America and Heaven are synonymous 
terms, and either name is suggestive of a happiness, peace 
and rest unknown in the Eastern hemisphere. 

Apropos of Continental manners, the most helpless man 
in the world is the one with a good-looking woman in his 
care in a foreign country. The truth of this statement 



68 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

will be found in the answer of any traveled American who 
has been the guardian abroad of a good-looking wife or 
sister. He will confirm it. There are but two civilized 
nations in the world that bestow general respect upon 
women, according to Anglo-Saxon codes of ethics. These 
are America and England. Witness the testimony of Roy 
Norton, an American writer and traveler of wide repute : 

"The only salvation in the American case is that we 
usually speak no language other than English and are there- 
fore blissfully ignorant of the comments with which some 
of the foreign "gentlemen" favor us when we uncon- 
cernedly walk the streets or sit in cafes. But if an Ameri- 
can happens to understand French, German or Italian, and 
has a handsome companion of the opposite sex, he might 
also echo the fine refrain of that historic character of Mark 
Twain's who didn't know which was the worst. Hell or 
Hadleyville. It is the one insurmountable evil of foreign 
travel. He can forgive or endure poor sanitation, poor 
railway trains, poor hotel arrangements, poor food and 
the ever-extended hand demanding a tip, but he can neither 
forget nor forgive, with equanimity, the insults offered by 
some of these "gentlemen" abroad. 

"The viewpoint of what constitutes the conduct of a gen- 
tleman are so radically different, the attitude of the women 
themselves is so different, the whole atmosphere is so dif- 
ferent from that which we have grown to regard as ethical. 
There seems to be scarcely a country in the world populated 
by Caucasians, except England, her dependencies and 
America, where many men do not feel privileged to address 
any unattended woman who attracts them — and sometimes 
the attendance does not matter, as they will deliberately 
address them even if they have an escort. 

" Tt is a compliment to the woman,' an average French- 
man once said in explanation, using almost the same words 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 69 

that had been given by a Spaniard with whom I had brought 
up the same point of politeness five or six years previous. 
In neither case did these men speak to unattended women, 
for both were happily and devotedly married, and were 
merely defending the customs of their respective countries. 
'If the woman is but fairly good-looking,' said the Spaniard, 
*she cannot help feeling flattered when you walk up beside 
her in the street as she goes daintily to her shopping, or to 
mass, and whisper in her ear, "Ah, thou pretty dove! I 
would give Heaven to have you dine with me this evening, 
or any other that you name!" See the difference in our 
politness, even though we have our pretty women. We ad- 
dress them all, the plain ones included. The lady turns, 
smiles, and says, *'Thank you, but I cannot." And you go 
your way, desolated. Or she — well — she accepts.' 

"In France or Germany they do it differently. They 
wink at the lady whenever she looks at them and her 
escort's back is turned, and make heartrending gestures. 
They stare at her with looks that are intended to be fas- 
cinating, that 'dying calf look with the eyes rolled help- 
lessly upward until the whites show. If she declines to 
notice these attentions, they follow her patiently by tram or 
cab to her door. They try to open it for her. If she beats 
them to it by a swift sprint, they walk up and down in 
front of the building for hours, staring at the windows and 
twirling their mustaches. If the city is small, they repeat 
this each time she appears. You see, they are so anxious to 
compliment her! And Heaven help the woman to whom 
they succeed in getting an introduction, for a flea is lacking 
in persistency when compared with some of these highly- 
cultured and nourished foreign 'gentlemen.' 

"It is not the intention to assert that all men abroad are 
guilty of these transgressions from our own code, or that 
all men abroad uphold those of their fellows who perpetrate 



70 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

them ; but it is certain that annoyances of this character are 
frequent in some foreign countries and are laughed at, 
whereas even in New York there is a constant crusade 
against the 'masher.' 

"The foreign courts offer no relief, the police are quite in- 
different, and if the lady's escort takes the law into his own 
hands and administers salutary punishment by disfiguring 
the foreign 'gentleman's' countenance with a few well- 
directed punches, or disturbing his dignity by a summary 
kicking into the street, he is made to suffer legal penalties, 
or even imprisoned. Most countries of Continental Europe 
regard the fist as the ultimate brutality and have passed laws 
that make it an extremely grave offense to strike anyone, 
while in Germany, to resist an officer, however offensive his 
actions and even though he crowd women off the sidewalk, 
is to incur the higher wrath. An officer of any kind, in 
Continental countries, is sacred. At the same time, the 
prompt readiness of an American or Englishman to use 
his fists when thus insulted, is well understood abroad, and 
when such an occasion arises, the 'masher,' whether officer 
or 'gentleman,' almost invariably takes to his heels. Neither 
stolid Englishmen or plain, crude Americans are apt to re- 
main quiet under the open ogling of their women relatives 
or friends by titled cafe loungers, who are valor personified 
in the persecution of a woman alone and unprotected, but 
discreetly sprint to a safer locality when an American or 
Englishman shows indication of seeking fistic satisfaction, 
penalty or. no penalty. It is a well-established fact that 
annoyers and insulters of women are invariably cowards, 
whether in uniform or otherwise disguised as 'gentlemen.' " 

There is another phase of this subject that is interesting. 
Wife-beating and the indiscriminate striking of English 
women with the English fist is of so common occurence that 
but little notice is taken of such instances, even by the law. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 71 

Among the upper social strata this primitive method of deal- 
ing with his womankind is a frequent pastime of John Bull 
and a fruitful source of domestic trouble and separation — 
more especially when this treatment is attempted with 
American wives of English husbands. Farther down in the 
human scale, in the homes of the working-class, a wife with 
a blackened eye or bruised face is a spectacle too common to 
cause comment — nay, even when her lord administers his 
chaste correction in the open street, the public usually re- 
gards the matter as an entirely private one and takes only 
a momentary interest. Few cases get into Court, since it 
is apparently an unwritten law that a man not only has a 
perfect right to strike his wife, but the wife is all the better 
for it. Among the lower classes, blows are often regarded 
as outward expressions of true affection. Witness the com- 
plaint of a coster-girl to her inattentive swain at 'Amstead 
'Eath on Boxing Day: "Don't jer luv yer ducky no more, 
Bill? Then w'y don't jer knock us abaht a bit, lovey?" 
The principle is even further expressed and more aptly, in 
the sympathetic communing of a Whitechapel neighbor with 
a long-suffering widow : 'T suppose yore Bill's 'ittin' the 
'arp wiv the hangels now." Long-suffering widow : *'Not 
'im. 'Ittin' the hangels wiv the 'arp's nearer Bill's mark." 
Referring once more to our weather subject, once in a 
while we spring this solid truth on an average English in- 
tellect. We say, ''When a man never did any work, and his 
father and grandfather never did any work, that man is one 
of the nobility, isn't he?" The answer is always, "Oh, yes- 
sir, the nobility never work, sir." Then we say, "Ah, we 
call those kind of people 'tramps' in America." Then they 
drop dead. A slap at the nobility has about the same effect 
on an Englishman as the sudden descent on his head of a 
load of brick. The shock generally kills him, but he always 
drops ! Caste is a sacred thing in England, and the various 



"JT. JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

descending grades are sharply defined, from the King, who 
is in a class by himself, to the chimney-sweep, who is na- 
turally in no class at all. The "clawsses" between these 
extremes include the nobility, the untitled "400," the legal 
and medical professions, clergy, high Army and Navy of- 
ficials, leaders of the Government, then through a descend- 
ing scale to the "middle clawss" which includes those in or- 
dinary business, or "trade," and so on down through the in- 
ferior serving-class to the humble cat's-meat man and the 
sweep. Each class keeps to itself and looks scornfully down 
upon the class below, drawing its skirts tightly aside to 
avoid any contamination. Each general class is further sub- 
divided — the tradesman who lives in rooms, or "apart- 
ments," over his shop is socially far below the lordly pro- 
prietor who resides in a neighborhood apart from the scene 
of his daily toil. Approximately also, there exists a wide 
social gulf between the Vicar of the parish church and his 
meek and lowly Curate. The Kings kicks the nobleman, the 
nobleman boots the Church and State official, he passes the 
kick down to the "gentry," who in turn propel the trades- 
men forward, and from thence downward each exponent in 
the social scale receives the kick with a grateful "Thank 
you," and bestows it on his immediate inferior until finally 
the sweep and the cat's-meat man are left to boot each other, 
or the cat if preferred. Servility is the badge of all the 
English tribe, each class looking reverently upward to the 
superior, and all lifting adoring eyes to "Ryalty" and the 
Court. Should you desire to learn the acme of servility 
or seek to know the uttermost limit that obsequiousness can 
attain, get yourself introduced to a London tradesman as 
Lord Somebody! There will be no blacking left upon your 
boots for others to lick — he will want it all. 

That the principle of caste is not confined to England 
alone, the following condensed bit of wisdom will perhaps 
illustrate : 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 73 

"Big fleas have little fleas 

Upon their backs to bite 'em, 
And they in turn have smaller fleas, 
And so ad infinitum." 

Americans on their first visit to London usually comment 
upon the great number of ragged and dirty men and women 
seen in the streets. It is not necessary to go to the squalid 
parts of the city to see them, for they are visible at all hours 
in the Strand, Regent and Oxford Streets, while aristo- 
cratic Pall Mall also knows them well. Their poverty is 
obviously real, and one can guess their hunger. They do 
not always beg, but shuffle listlessly through the streets. In 
winter they increase the bands of hunger-marchers that 
tramp through the gutters of the chief shopping thorough- 
fares, especially during the month preceding Christmas. 

London does not hide its poverty, and London's poverty 
makes no effort to hide itself. According to official statistics 
there are over 116,000 paupers, persons in receipt of relief 
from public charities. This provides a ratio of pauperism 
of twenty-four per thousand of population. This ratio is 
said to be slowly diminishing. There are various causes 
suggested for the existence of this vast number of paupers, 
but no single cause can be assigned. That it exists is a suf- 
ficient fact for the average Londoner. 

Parenthetically, there is a small boy in London whom I 
intend some fair morning to lead gently by the hand into a 
secluded spot, and secretly murder. The only thing that has 
saved his life thus far is that I dislike to cause grief to his 
parents, who are friends of mine and apparently have a 
genuine affection for the little devil. He is a walking 
volume of puzzles and conundrums, and because I have 
answered two or three of them correctly, he is constantly 
springing a new one on me in the presence of other people 
in order to "stick me," as he expresses it. He said at 



74 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

breakfast, "Oh, I say, can you do this one ? A man is forty 
years old, plus one-half his age. How old is he?" 

His father said to him, '*My son, let Mr. Hills eat his 
breakfast and don't annoy him." 

I said, "You dear angel child, the answer is eighty." 

"Why, how did you do it so quick?" squealed the angel. 

"I don't have to do it," I said. "I am the man." 

He dropped his knife and nearly fell off his chair. If he 
could have heard what I was saying to him in my heart, he 
would have died on the spot from fright ! 

He asked me one day if I was a schoolteacher at home, 
because I "knew such a lot." I said, "No, dear, I drive a 
hearse." I missed it that time, however, for that sweet pet 
told about forty people in the hotel that Mr. Hills drove a 
hearse in America ! And although some of them do not be- 
lieve it, others do, and the rest are doubtful — being largely 
English and very practical. On reflection I will not kill 
him outright — simply main him for life, and by and by 
maim him again. 

Returning from the Parliament Buildings in the cool of 
a charming afternoon, we sidestepped through Pimlico, an 
old residential part of London — going home that way partly 
to save time and partly to give the little Pimlicolics a treat. 
It was somewhere in that weird locality, where the long 
blocks of yellow houses all look alike and the shabby-genteel 
ex-gentry keep boarding-houses, that the first "cat's-meat 
man" crossed our enraptured vision. This person ("per- 
son" is the extreme English limit as an expression of social 
loathing and contempt) is a typical London institution — a 
sort of Pied Piper who pipes cats after him instead of rats 
and mice. His mission in life is to provide meat for pet 
cats, and his street-cry of "Meat, meat, meaty-meat, penny 
for meat, meaty-meat," attracts every cat — pet, plain cat, or 
otherwise — within hearing distance, and the C. M. M. is 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 75 

preceded, flanked and trailed by a ravenous rabble of hun- 
gry cats miaouwing a feline accompaniment to his seduc- 
tive cry. At almost every other doorway stands a mistress 
or white-aproned maid with the requisite penny, receiving in 
return a long thin wooden skewer piercing three or four 
portions of cheap meat. What the cats do with the skewers 
is a mystery. Maybe they serve as toothpicks. 

Another local snapshot of Pimlico, and also common to 
Bloomsbury, Bayswater, and other boarding-house districts, 
is the street-singer — a begging nuisance of the first water. 
He is always ragged and hungry-looking, and sometimes ac- 
companied by his presumed wife and baby. Begging is 
legally a crime, but street-singing is legally only a harmless 
form of out-of-door entertainment, and so these perambu- 
lating beggars in disguise walk very slowly through the 
quiet residential streets, bawling pathetic songs and care- 
fully watching windows for stray pennies. Strong, able- 
bodied huskies they are, and amply fitted for hard work, 
were it not so much easier to scrape a few shillings together 
in this more enjoyable way. A procession of this sort, aver- 
aging two or three an hour, is a monotonous, unnecessary, 
and exasperating nuisance to indoor residents who desire to 
write, practice music, or engage in conversation. Yet there 
are certain misguided people, usually elderly maidens or 
spectacled old ladies who ought to know better, who bestow 
charity on these loafing frauds — charity which finds its way 
to the nearest 'pub. 

The late King Edward's Birthday, my own Birthday, and 
Lord Mayor's Day, all fell on the same ninth of November 
not so very long ago, and there was something doing in 
London town that day, I do assure you. It was a rare cele- 
bration, which for several reasons will never occur again. 
One reason is the recent death of the King, another reason 
is a private matter between the police and myself, and the 



76 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

other reasons do not count. The Lord Mayor celebrated in 
his ancient and time-honored custom, Eddie Guelph pro- 
vided a conspicuously joyous programme at Buckingham 
Palace, and I started a few things myself in my own feeble 
way. We all celebrated. Incidentally, I got in the way of 
the Lord Mayor's Parade, or the Lord Mayor's Parade got 
in the way of my hansom, or possibly it was the horse's 
fault — at all events I had a very near and excellent view 
of the procession, with two big London ''bobbies" holding 
my cab-horse's head, and another ''bobby" standing on the 
hansom-step to prevent my cabby from driving over the 
Lord Mayor ! I could plainly hear the cabby instructing the 
policemen in eloquent sincerity that the personage at that 
moment honoring the interior of the hansom with his 
august presence was worth "all the blooming, blawsted Lord 
Myor's in hall England," but the three "bobbies" were ob- 
durate and the hansom stayed anchored right there until the 
entire parade had passed. It wasn't a long time at that — 
twenty minutes, perhaps. The Lord Mayor bowed to us 
from his gorgeous gold chariot with a sort of politely in- 
quisitive expression as he observed my police escort. My 
Birthday was not perhaps attracting quite so much public 
attention as his, but in some respects it was a close second. 
I noticed for several days afterward that I was regarded 
with much interest, and even occasionally bowed to by mem- 
bers of the London police force, all of whom were entire 
strangers to me, but who were evidently aware of the date 
of my birth, although I had arrived three thousand miles 
away from London ! But never mind — praise be for happy 
memories — let us return to our Southdowns. 

Every year a new Lord Mayor goes into office, assisted by 
a grand pageant of soldiers, white-wigged Judges and city 
nabobs in gold-covered circus-coaches sprinkled all over 
with wigged and powdered footmen bearing wands, pre- 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED y^ 

ceded and followed by historical floats, brass bands, and 
grotesque figures on horseback, the parade being viewed by 
the same kind of adoring crowd along the route that turns 
out in New York on the occasion of a St. Patrick's Day 
Parade — ^but with different feelings of adoration. It is a 
great day for London, and is always a public holiday. 
Sometimes it rains on Lord Mayor's Day, and wets more 
feathers, gold lace, big wigs, cocked hats and uniforms than 
you would see in a dozen parades in America, but London 
loves this opera bouffe display and the soldiers wear helmets 
and plumes that make them look about seven feet high. As 
already stated, it requires only a very short time for the 
procession to pass, yet we were told it was the greatest sight 
on earth excepting the Queen's Jubilee and King Edward's 
Coronation. I told the hotel people and others about the 
parades we have in New York wherein seventy-five thou- 
sand march at one time and how it requires all the after- 
noon for one of our parades to pass the reviewing-stand — 
and they regarded me as the biggest liar in all Europe ! But 
I remember that the big Columbian Parade in New York 
was five hours passing my offices on Union Square, and 
there was another procession right behind it that occupied 
all the evening, and it took most of the paraders all night 
to get home ! Nevertheless these people don't believe it and 
never will. They will forget all about the big Columbian 
Parade and remember only about my monumental lie. All 
the satisfaction or gratitude that I receive is, "Oh, I sye, 
old chap, that's one of your American tall stories, isn't it — 
haw, haw — most extraordinary!" I have become exceed- 
ingly wearied sometimes in my educational missionary la- 
bors among this perverse and heathen generation. What 
they don't know would sink the whole island, and I often 
wonder how they keep it afloat, anyhow ! 



78 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

There is a little spot in London, enclosed by iron railings 
and situated close beside one of the principal entrances to 
Hyde Park, that to me is one of the most pathetic and 
touching places on all this broad, green earth. It is known 
as the ''Dogs' Cemetery," and here repose all that remain 
of two or three hundred faithful and loving companions of 
mankind, each tiny grave enclosed by an iron border and 
bearing a small marble slab, or monument, with the name 
of the dog cut thereon and frequently also some touching 
inscription. The loyalty of the canine heart is proverbial — 
nothing can destroy it, not even cruelty, and a dog will not 
only love but even defend an unworthy master. I doubt if 
within any of our great cemeteries which are filled with 
human remains, there lies buried one-tenth part of all the 
unquestioning love and loyal devotion represented in that 
little plot of ground in Hyde Park. Witness some of the 
testimony copied verbatim from little marble tombstones 
erected here in loving memory : 

''Rex/' for nine years the devoted companion of Lady Bancroft. 
"Not one of these is forgotten before God." (Luke xii, 6.) 

My Own "Pepper." Patient and loving to the end. 

In loving memory of "Toby." "He was my friend, faithful and 
true to me." 

Here lie two faithful creatures, "Snap" and "Peter." "We are 
only sleeping, master." 

A broken marble column five feet in height, the shaft entwined 
with marble lillies exquisitely carven, bears this inscription : "In 
loving memory of dear, gentle little Lily. Died January 6, 1900, 
aged 14 years." 

My "Baba." Never forgotten, never replaced. 

"Joe Follett." For over five years the dearest and constant com- 
panion of H. F. and M. F. "Surely he was not a dog, only he was 
not human." 

To my dear "Mossoo." "There are men both great and wise who 
say that the dumb creatures we have cherished here below shall give 
us kindly greeting when we pass the golden gates." 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 79 

"Pompey." In life the firmest friend; the first to welcome and 
defend. 

A tribute of respect to *'Bebe'" and "Sam." 

In loving memory of "Puck Lee." "In a false world, thy heart 
was brave and true," 

To my own "Bob." For nine years the beloved and devoted com- 
panion of Mrs. M. Digan. "He talked with soft brown eyes more 
eloquent than speech." 

To our gentle little Blenheim "Jane." "She brought the sunshine 
into our lives but she took it away with her." 

Our good and faithful "Peter." "No truer friend than he." 

In affectionate memory of darling "Jimmy," a loving, dear and 
faithful friend for fourteen years. 

"Curly," a faithful friend. He pined for his lost mistress and 
died November 18, 1896. 

In loving memory of "Chum," my faithful friend for ten years. 

In faithful memory of "Judy." "A friend loveth at all times." 

To our sweet little "Affschen." For seventeen years a loving and 
faithful companion. 

In loving memory of darling "Jockie," a Scotch collie. The most 
intelligent, faithful, gentle, sweet-tempered and affectionate dog that 
ever lived, and adored by his devoted and sorrowing friend, Sir W. 
Seton Gordon, Bart. 

The above are only specimens of the sincere and touch- 
ing tributes to be found on nearly all these tiny marble 
tablets, erected here "in loving memory." Most of the in- 
scriptions include dates of birth or death, which have here 
been omitted, and upon many of the tiny graves were 
wreaths of immortelles and flowers, which the attendant 
informed me were frequently renewed. 

While some people may carp and sneer at such lavish dis- 
play of money and affection upon a dumb animal, such 
people, fortunately for our race, are rare. The loving spirit 
which prompts these tiny memorials and offers such pathetic 
evidence to the endearing qualities of the loyal little hearts 
that lie unresponsive beneath them, needs no apology. 
Thousands of humankind lie buried under monuments far 



8o JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

more imposing, yet deserve far less remembrance than these 
little friends of man. How many men or women could 
stand the test of that touching line above, *'In a false world, 
thy heart was brave and true" ? According to Scripture, 
both Sodom and Gomorrah would have been spared from 
Divine destruction had Lot been able to produce only ten 
good citizens. If it had been good dogs, there might have 
been a different story to tell, a reflection in which there 
is meat for an excellent sermon. 

There are certain localities in London, including the 
prominent hotels and sundry places of amusement, where 
you are pretty safe to find visiting Americans at all hours 
of the day, sight-seeing or swapping experiences. It is pos- 
sible in these popular rendezvous, more or less hallowed by 
roaming citizens of the Great Republic, to acquire consider- 
able information, not only as to how Europe appears when 
viewed through the eyes of other people, but concerning 
various ways and means of traveling. My idea of the dis- 
tance from New York to Liverpool was considerably dis- 
turbed, for instance, by hearing at the Savoy Hotel a dis- 
gusted new arrival who had made a somewhat tumultuous 
passage, remark, "These steamship fellows call it 2,800 
miles from New York to Liverpool, do they? Wal, that's 
measuring on a flat mill-pond. When your ship has to 
climb up and down all them waves, it measures about three 
times as fur!" 

In this connection, the following letter, received at 
Queenstown by a lady passenger for New York, may point 
a moral : 

Lunnon Town, 
After your departure. 
"Beloved Star, 

Thou art so near, and yet!" 

This note is sent in care of the Purser of your ship, who will 
hand it to you and look at your tongue. Cheer up, you will soon be 




^ jm^m^. 







"Dogs' Cemetery," Hyde Park 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 8i 

dead. Perhaps a few popular songs would make you feel different. 
Listen to Melba on the gramophone, "the 'Star Spangled Banner/ 
ladies and gentlemen, as sung on the good ship Cesic, all down but 
the Captain!" 

"Oh, say, did you see by the dawn's early light, 
What so proudly you ate at the twilight's last gleaming?" 
Don't deny it. "The Lord loveth a cheerful liar," but you are not 
cheerful this morning, and I know it. The breakfast rolls and the 
ship rolls too, and when even sailors are heaving the lead and pas- 
sengers calling from their berths for "New Yo-o-o-r-r-r-k," it is no 
time for prevarication. The choir will sing "Dixie :" 

"I wish I was with Hillsie, hooray, hooray, 

On top a tram, 

Don't care a cent. 
Away back there with Hillsie, 

Hooray, Hooray, 
Away back there with (Hurry up, steward — OH, my!)" 

There's more of that coming — I mean the song. The rest follows 
naturally. One of the passengers, on the Deutschland, not feeling 
well enough for a full dinner, ate only a plum and afterward a pear. 
"And what gets me, old man," said he, with earnest eyes, "is that the 
plum came up first ! Now how the mischief did that plum get by the 
pear?" But things like these and Flying Dutchmen are mysteries 
of the deep blue sea. How about this little National Hymn — you 
know everything rises when this is sung : 

"OH, my good gracious me ! 
Is there no remedee 

For this sort of thing? 
Please throw me overboard ! 
OH, my! And OH, Good Lord! 
Why did I come aboard? 

God save the (BING! There goes my bouillon-cup!") 

While you are climbing big waves and sliding down the other side, 
I shall be resting for a week in Amster(you say it), inspecting 
Dutch windmills, dog teams, balloon trousers and wooden shoes — 
sitting in the shade of a cold stein and chewing the rag of desolation, 
thinking, love, of you, and my happy little home so far away, far 
away. My heart has gone sailing with you, and "where the heart 
is, the lungs are near by," though thank God in this case the stomach 
remains on dry land. The Holland atmosphere, unlike that of Lon- 



82 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

don, is very clear, resembling the native schnapps. There are no 
Newfoundland fogs or long foam-capped ocean surges in these little 
canals for big ships to rise upon and then sink lurching downward 
with that awful gone-ness and tired feeling, you know — Whoa, 
there ! Hi, stewardess ! 

Well, as I was saying when you interrupted, this clearness of 
atmosphere is very different from that around your pretty little cot 
in Pittsburgh, with its charming and picturesque draping of soot 
and other words to that effect, and the Dutch people presumably 
have pink lungs. The wool of Dutch sheep is very white, in delicate 
and harmonious accord with the color-scheme of old Dutch house 
interiors, lungs and all probably, all of which couldn't happen in 
Pittsburgh at all. In the beautiful and touching language of the 
Philadelphia poet, "Mary had a little lamb, with mint sauce on the 
side" — no, that's another story and it wasn't on board ship, either, 
or the lamb would have been on the same side as the sauce, or more 
likely over it. 

"Mary had a little lamb. 
Its fleece was white as snow. 
She took it out to Pittsburgh — 
And now just look at the dam thing! 

Remember me to the Captain and the Purser, neither of whom as 
yet enjoys the felicity of my acquaintance and are therefore 
probably not worried about their ultimate salvation, as is the case 
with some others with whom I have crossed. I am sending the Pur- 
ser a line, enclosing this for you and thereby quite naturally paving 
the way to his eternal gratitude. 

Oh, I sye, look out on the ocean ! Is that a load of hay on the 
horizon? What a lot of water! There was an old lady who had 
lived all her life in Kansas, a life of hard work and economy, and 
she had never seen the Streets of Cairo or the ocean either. She 
came East finally, and saw the Atlantic stretching its boundless way 
across to the Old World. She gazed a long time and then they 
asked her what she thought of it. She drew a long breath and said, 
"Well, for once in my life, I'm glad to see something that there's 
enough of !" 

The congregation will please rise and unite in singing Hymn Num- 
ber Steen, Page bottle of wine, room 31, entitled "Rolling Home:" 

"Oh, look on high whate'er betide. 
Try and forget your poor inside ; 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 83 

Cast all your trouble on the sea, 
And think of me, Oh, think of me." 

(Watts revised version.) 

The letter closed at that point and I have frequently pon- 
dered over its probably fatal effect upon the recipient and 
have pictured in my mind that affecting burial at sea, when 
her canvas-enshrouded form slid with a dull thud into the 
receptive arms of old Neptune in the rolling waste of green. 
But maybe they just boxed her up and shipped her to Pitts- 
burgh. I never got any reply to the letter and so I don't 
feel interested any more. 

Speaking of two such radically different subjects as 
hymns and Pittsburgh, I shall never again hear that good 
old anthem, "The Lord Is My Shepherd," without recalling 
the English Christmas and certain ancient and honorable 
customs connected with that festive season of goose, plum 
pudding, Christmas card sending, and likewise that exas- 
perating accompaniment known as "the waits." These are 
small bands of street musicians who come around in the 
night after everyone has got comfortably asleep, and then 
play church hymns ! In the good old days that followed the 
religious hammering administered to England by the late 
Oliver Cromwell, when the population took its hymns along 
with its meals and neglected no opportunity for religious 
services between, this sort of thing might have been popular, 
but times have changed, and the "waits" are now little more 
than an advance-guard of the dreaded German invasion, 
being composed of "little Cherman bands" that visit Eng- 
land annually to wake up the innocent and slumbering 
populace and turn their thoughts to God. It wakes them 
up, all right, and the subsequent profanity eloquently at- 
tests the attainment of the objject. On the occasion I refer 
to, the fog was clearing away and when I returned home 
from the Gaiety Theatre just before midnight, the moor 



84 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

was taking its fortnightly look at London and "little stars 
were twinkling bright, twinkling on you and me," or rather 
on you and myself, as the poet should have said. I went 
to sleep, murmuring, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I 
wonder who you are and what your real name is," and was 
peacefully dreaming of New York and soft-shell crabs and 
other things that English people never heard of and con- 
sequently never dream of, when suddenly I woke up under 
the impression that my bed had been struck by lightning. 
Then I saw that it was not as bad as that, and that the dis- 
turbance, whatever it was, came from the street. It was 
music — very different from ordinary, every-day music — 
low, strangely sweet and tremulous — played by a shivering 
little quartette standing under the street-lamp — **The Lord 
Is My Shepherd." I realized that I was in the presence 
of one of England's great institutions, and peered out 
through the cold, darkness and soft-coal smoke to further 
investigate. I had never seen any "waits" before and was 
very much interested. I may say however, that before the 
week was out I had lost considerable of this interest and 
was taking my serenades in bed, with a pillow in each ear. 
Four musicians stood out there in the cold, chilled to the 
trombone. The music sounded far away, weird and eerie 
like a midnight mass, or softly-breathing dirge. Suddenly 
it ceased. There was a brief silence, then they began to 
play another hymn, familiar yet unfamiliar, indescribably 
sweet and faint, like the Antwerp tinkling chimes. There 
was also a far-off echoing bugle effect, similar to "Taps" at 
a military funeral and leaving much the same sweet touch 
of sadness in the mind. Another verse, then silence again, 
silence that remained unbroken. How the musicians de- 
parted or where they went, I know not. They vanished like 
the shadows they were — folded themselves like the Arabs, 
probably, and silently slid into space. I looked out of the 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 85 

window, between two mighty yawns, but the street was 
quiet and deserted. Then I looked at the time, 2.30 A. M., 
went back to bed, and fell asleep wondering why and what. 
At breakfast, between the wrathful denunciation of a 
sleepy barbarian whose rest had also been somewhat frac- 
tured, I learned that it is an old English custom which 
precedes Christmas, along with that other pleasing eccen- 
tricity called ''Christmas Carols." The two in combination 
are quite sufficient to keep an Englishman and his house- 
hold well stirred up after sunset. The difference between 
the ''Waits" and the "Carols" is simply that the former 
wake you up at night and play the hymns to you, while the 
latter (usually children) stand on your front porch during 
the evening and sing them to you, until you either buy them 
oif with some pennies or shoo them away with a brick. As 
a rule, these "Carols" are youthful brigands who are out 
for a general "hold-up," and unless given a cash ransom or 
a pail of cold water, they will camp on your porch and 
squall "When Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night" 
till daybreak ! Neither shepherds, flocks, or "Carols" being 
desirable on one's front porch all night, it is always best to 
settle the matter one way or the other in the beginning. 
Being an old ancestral custom, and both old customs and 
old ancestors being as sacred to an Englishman as they are 
to a Chinaman, it has never been interferred with, or 
changed, or improved upon — in which respect it resembles 
the English shirt, which is another story. However, I 
thought it a very pleasing custom (on the first occasion, I 
mean), and far superior to either tom-cats or night-owls. 
It is an interesting fact that the musicians do not collect 
contributions until the day after Christmas, which is evi- 
dence of rare intelligence and has no doubt been proved by 
past experience to be the safest way. 



86 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

Another beautiful Christmas custom which is slowly but 
surely sapping the mental foundations of British house- 
holders, paying guests, office tenants, and other probable 
possessors of cash, is the ''Christmas box." The custom 
of giving a Christmas present, or ''tip'' to servants and em- 
ployes, is not uncommon in other countries and is not ob- 
jectionable, but in England everybody expects a present — 
the grocer, butcher, paper-boy, postman, policeman, char- 
woman, elevator-boy, milkman — everyone wants his 
"Christmas box," and if not forthcoming promptly or de- 
layed by unexpected circumstances, they simply call and 
ask you for it, which is practically only a mild form of 
highway robbery. Many a Briton have I heard bemoan and 
revile this undue tax on his finances, but few there are so 
bravely rash as to refuse, thereby incurring a year of re- 
proachful looks and petty annoyances from those aggrieved. 
Nor do those clever and far-seeing people who quit Eng- 
land during the Christmas holidays, hoping thereby to es- 
cape this and other kindred evils, wholly succeed in that 
laudable endeavor. The "Waits" and "Carols" will have 
vanished, it is true, but a procession of hardy "Christmas 
box" fiends, with memories which are simply devilish and 
a persevering persistence that would qualify them as human 
adhesive plasters, will ring the door-bell or rattle the knocker 
at all hours of the day and evening, to wish a belated "Merry 
Christmas" and politely call attention to the little oversight. 

The Christmas pudding is the piece de resistance of the 
day, and the effect of its after-dinner introduction, when the 
dining-room is darkened and a big butler brings in the pud- 
ding, all alive with the dancing blue flames of poured-on 
brandy (the pudding, not the butler) is "simply ripping," 
as the English vernacular has it. When the pudding is 
served, the family and guests unite in an exciting search, 
each to his own portion, for the ring, sixpence, "thrup- 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 87 

pence," and sundry other objects which have been baked in- 
side it and are supposed to possess mystic properties and 
bring luck or otherwise to the finders. The guest who bites 
on the ring, for instance, while comfortably masticating his 
plum-cud, will infallibly be married before another Christ- 
mas, and the fact that he or she may be already married 
cuts no ice whatever. The ''thruppence" is supposed to 
bring wealth and good luck. We accounted for all the ar- 
ticles in our pudding, I believe, except the "thruppenny bit." 
I had swallowed that in a sudden absentmindedness caused 
by nearly biting it in half under the mistaken impression 
that it was a plum, but I said nothing about it, although a 
general demand was made for its production by whoever 
had it, and its absence was regarded as very mysterious. 
There was nothing mysterious about it — I had it safe, but 
as I couldn't produce it for inspection, I let it go at that. 
It didn't bring me luck, or anything else, beyond a hideous 
uncertainty and the feeling that I was carrying money about 
very carelessly among strangers. 

I swallowed a big horse-fly once, while chasing a 'bus 
with my mouth wide open for breath, and all that blessed 
day I was certain I could hear that fly faintly buzzing, and 
feel it poking around under my waistcoat looking for an 
exit. Of course that was all imagination, for a fly does not 
continue disturbing the peace after disturbing gastric juice, 
still I had that tired feeling all right and disposed of nu- 
merous and varied liquids in an endeavor to drown or 
poison the fly, which was apparently whirling about like an 
electric fan just southeast of my watch-pocket. It is a re- 
markable fact, how at exactly such inopportune moments 
you remember similar instances of that kind of thing or 
something worse, that happened to somebody else, and how 
he strangled, or exploded, or did something equally fright- 
ful before he died, or just afterward, and it makes you feel 



88 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

foolish. I had a vivid recollection of a man who drank 
some water in Texas, of all places, and discovered after- 
wards that a Mexican horned toad had taken apartments in 
his interior. Then there was the little girl in Brooklyn who 
swallowed a tadpole, which developed into a green frog that 
trilled nightly in its dark, damp prison, and all the other 
children used to sit in a hushed circle around this infant 
phenomenon and listen to the mocking-bird inside. And I 
thought of the Jersey farmer who hired a tramp to saw 
some wood for a dollar, paid him a two-dollar bill by mis- 
take, demanded it back, and the tramp rolled the bill up and 
swallowed it. The hired man held the tramp while the 
farmer gave him an emetic, and the tramp coughed up 
$1.85 in silver! I thought of all these things and I thought 
of the fly, and hoped it wouldn't crawl into my appendix 
and have to be sent for with a hurry-wagon, and altogether 
it was a rather crowded afternoon, as I remember it. The 
moral is to keep your mouth shut, which is a good general 
rule, flies or no flies. 

England, although a monarchy, allows to her subjects and 
indeed to all within her realm, a freedom of speech and 
action which is the more surprising since it favors also the 
ever-present horde of Socialists and ^Viff-raff" of every 
kind that is poured into the island from every Continental 
sewer of vile and wretched humanity. If you object to 
royalty or the Government, if you disapprove of law and 
order or the English Church, if you have ideas of your own 
that conflict ever so directly with prevailing conditions and 
customs, even if you happen to be a suffragette — you are 
at perfect liberty to go to Hyde Park, get on a barrel, gather 
a crowd, and preach anything you like from atheism to 
treason, so long as you do not injure the grass! Nobody 
will complain, the police pay no attention — England is a 
land of liberty and free speech. Consequently it follows as 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 89 

a natural corollary, that what is permitted to an individual 
is also permissible for two, three or a larger number of in- 
dividuals, and so we come to observe what are called "hun- 
ger marches," and processions of England's great army of 
the "unemployed." I have never seen a more striking ob- 
ject lesson than one of these processions in the streets of 
London — the permitted wandering of the huge tiger-beast 
representing Socialism and oppressed poverty, through the 
city's most fashionable and wealthy section. Imagine a 
parade of the "unemployed," including in its ragged ranks 
over fifty thousand hungry and often desperate marchers, 
both men and women, carrying red flags and banners bear- 
ing such inflammatory inscriptions as "Down With Cap- 
ital," "Socialism Forever," "The Coming Revolution," "We 
Are the Workers Whose Blood Supports Capital," "Death 
To the Upper Class," "We Don't Ask Bread; We Want 
Work," "Free Distribution of Wealth," and followed by 
eighty great barges full of children waving small red flags 
and singing Socialist songs ! Mounted and foot police 
guarded on either side along the entire length of this mighty 
menace of labor to capital, only ten feet apart and proceed- 
ing step by step with the marchers, and all along the route 
other police were stationed to preserve order and guard 
against an outbreak. Muttered growlings came from the 
ranks, nevertheless, curses and jeers were openly flung at 
spectators in windows, and when a carriage passed with 
liveried coachman and footman an ugly yell of execration 
rang from the paraders all along the line. This procession 
was passing through Oxford Street, the principal thorough- 
fare of the "swell" West End, on its way to Hyde Park, 
where a mass meeting was held later and labor agitators 
preached the coming revolution, one advocating openly the 
immediate sacking of London amid cheers and howls of 
approval — unchecked and unrebuked! 



90 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

In all of this the Government sees no menace. Instead 
of being repressed or confined, the tiger is permitted to 
prowl openly and unchallenged, to snarl his hate and bare 
his yellow teeth at what he hopes some day to tear and 
rend apart. Did the French Revolution leave no impression 
on England? Here apparently is the selfsame tiger, un- 
leashed even and moving in plain view instead of secretly, 
its jaws dripping with anticipation, and saffron eyes rov- 
ing impatiently over the goodly preserves of the rich and 
unheeding. It was both an object lesson and food for 
thought, as I sat there on top of the halted 'bus, and watched 
the slow-moving labor-beast passing by and listened to its 
occasional roars of rage and ferocious exultation at the well- 
dressed spectators, and elegant West End shop-windows 
full of riches, that were not for him — yet! 

The English weather (to return to our original subject) 
is directly responsible for my tolerably intimate relations 
with the royal family. It was raining that day, and had 
also rained the day before and the day before that, and in 
the general ennui and absence of anything to do or anywhere 
to go, and thinking perhaps that the Prince of Wales (now 
King of England) might be equally as bored as myself, I 
dropped him a line of congratulation on his birthday, in- 
cidentally referring to the present peaceful and undisturbed 
relations between the United States and England, and also 
informing him that I was quite well and trusted that these 
few lines would find him enjoying the same great blessing, 
or words to that effect. Having thus broken the spell of my 
own ennui and given the Prince something to occupy his 
time later on, I followed it up by a letter to the Lord Mayor, 
suggesting his official residence, the Mansion House, as an 
ideal headquarters for the London branch of the Salvation 
Army, and pointing out the great honor and glory accruing 
to himself if he adopted and made public my suggestion as 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 91 

his own happy thought and put the official red-tape wheel 
in motion for unwinding such a corking good proposition. 
I regret to say that the Lord Mayor never replied to my 
letter or took any notice of it at all beyond putting an extra 
policeman on duty opposite the house where I lived. From 
what I have since learned, I think the proposal may have 
hit him a little too suddenly perhaps, and therefore not have 
proved an entirely agreeable subject. In these official mat- 
ters I find it is desirable when you wish to bring something 
to the notice of any high authority, as they call it, to first 
convey to them something to the effect that there might 
be something to that effect prepared for presentation before 
them later on, and then after waiting awhile for that ante- 
preliminary announcement to soak in, to thereupon follow 
it up with a second, or preliminary announcement, to the 
effect that something to the effect referred to in the pre- 
vious communication that I had had the honor of submit- 
ting, had since been prepared and would be submitted for 
consideration on receipt of an intimation as to when it 
would be convenient to receive said something to that effect, 
etc., etc., etc. I also learned that a proper reply to such a 
communication from myself would be returned at the 
proper time, and then when the planets were in the proper 
ascension and the hour propitious for presenting the sub- 
ject in due form and under proper auspices, I could get in 
line and by daily attendance and closely conforming to 
rules, formulae, and precedents governing the case, might 
possibly hear something drop. I was much impressed by 
this official system, and when I write the Lord Alayor again, 
I shall wire him a week ahead and then write him to watch 
out for a letter I'm going to send him later, explaining in 
the letter about the telegram and the P. S. will read, "Say, 
what about that Salvation Army idea of ours?" Then he'll 
know what is coming and can write a coherent and properly 



92 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

appreciative reply. I am really rather sorry now that I 
sprung it so abruptly. It is a shocking thing to an English- 
man to have the cart backed up for delivery before he sees 
the horse coming. 

But the Prince of Wales v^as different, considerably dif- 
ferent. He got my letter and recognized the high sign at 
once. A couple of days after I wrote him, a royal equipage, 
splashed all over with crimson velvet, gold paint, powdered 
footmen, and red-coated postillions on the four horses, drew 
up before our residence and a six-foot gold-laced Equerry 
played rat-a-tat on the door knocker, while all the white- 
wigged and powdered attendants removed their crimson 
three-cornered hats and stood at attention ! Or rather, to 
be more exact, perhaps I should say that it was the postman 
who knocked — but never mind, that is a little detail. What 
are a few coaches, anyhow? The main point is that I re- 
ceived the following letter, and the general impression in 
the neighborhood seemed to be that the Prince and I were 
doing London together and that New York was my per- 
sonal property ! The royal reply by deputy read as follows, 
and is a personal one instead of the usual cut and dried form 
of such acknowledgments : 

"Dear Old Chap: I " 

No, I am wrong. This is the one: 

''Lady Eva Dagdale presents her compliments to Mr. 
George Wallingford Hills and his daughter, and is desired 
by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to write and 
thank them both for the letter of congratulation on his 
birthday and for all their good wishes, and to say how much 
the Prince appreciated their kind thought/'' 

George, then Prince of Wales, is now George, King of 
England, following in the line of succession his illustrious 
father, King Edward the Seventh. Some day when there 
is nothing doing and time hangs as heavy on my hands as 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 93 

it did that day in London, I shall probably write him again. 
Idle formality and red tape such as surrounds and tangles 
up the Lord Mayor's private correspondence, is entirely dis- 
pensed with between royalty and myself. We know better. 

I am reminded by this dissertation on Royalty that with 
the exception of what territory is possessed by the Crown, 
the Municipality, and the great Railway Companies, the 
land upon which the great city of London stands is almost 
all owned by ten men. Not being one of these ten myself, 
I am correspondingly astonished, and naturally regard such 
a thing as monstrous. No wonder English Radicals de- 
mand an accounting from these tremendously rich Ducal 
landlords. "Ground rent" is the secret of this wealth. 
These enormous areas of land, presented in the olden days 
by kings to royal favorites, have since been built upon 
under "ground rent" leases providing that at the expiration 
of the fifty or hundred-year term, the ownership of all 
buildings erected upon this leased land by tenants shall re- 
vert to the owner of the' land ! Consequently many of the 
finest business structures of London belong to the Ducal 
descendants of the original land-owners, and every year 
hundreds of other buildings of every description — houses, 
shops, hotels and others, fall into the fi-nancial laps of these 
already gorged and swollen Ducal capitalists, by expiration 
of lease and under reversion conditions. In addition to 
these princely metropolitan holdings are the great parks and 
private domains situated in the Midlands afar from Lon- 
don, known as "The Dukeries" and occupied as Ducal 
country-seats, and the magnificent residences and broad 
acres of the Duke of Norfolk and Duke of Richmond, lo- 
cated in the South of England. The entire list of such pos- 
sessions would fill a small volume. 

Referring to London, the Duke of Westminster, as owner 
of the largest part and parcel of the land, heads the list. 



94 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

His property was formerly known as the Grosvenor estate 
and embraces vast tracts in the west and southwest portions 
of the city. 

The second on the Hst, Lord Cadogan, holds the property 
brought to his family by General Cadogan, who was a not- 
able member of the Horse Guards in the time of Queen 
Anne. 

Viscount Portman owns land once known as the farm 
of the Knights of Jerusalem and received by Chief Justice 
Portman as a gift from Queen Mary in 1532. Much of this 
is situated in the West Central district. Lying east of the 
Portman estate is the Portland property, now owned by a 
young man who inherited it from the daughter of the fourth 
Duke of Portland. 

The Great Central Railway Station stands on land owned 
by the Eyre family. Not far from this property are the 
lands known as Hampstead, contiguous to Camden Town 
and Kentish Town, the property of Lord Southampton. 
Lord Southampton also owns Tottenham Manor, which is 
crossed by the Euston Road. 

The Duke of Bedford owns city property even more valu- 
able. It embraces St. Pancras to the north of Euston Sta- 
tion, the lands occupied by the British Museum, Russell 
Square and Covent Garden. This property was given to 
a Duke of Bedford in 1671 by Charles the Second, and with 
it were given all the rights of Covent Garden Market, which 
produces an enormous income. 

To the east of the property of the Duke of Bedford lie 
the lands of Lord Northampton, comprising the parishes of 
St. James, Clerkenwell and St. Marys; to the west, the 
lands of Llangattock, which lie south of the Thames, com- 
prising Southwark, Camberwell and Newington. 

All these lands are leased for a term of ninety-nine years 
and then revert to the heirs of the original owner with all 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 95 

the buildings on them. It is impossible to obtain any idea 
of their enormous value. And the moral ? Well, every city 
in England has its army of hungry men, with over twice 
as many equally hungry wives and children behind them! 
The wonder is that the poorer class has not long ago arisen 
in its wrath and might against the nobility, even as the 
French rose in the terrible days of the guillotine and Robes- 
pierre. 

Conditions such as these are sooner or later their own 
death-warrant. On one hand, the indifference of teeming 
and insolent wealth — on the other, the helpless and hungry 
poor with shining eyes and clenched hands. The caviar 
imported specially from Russia as a table delicacy for the 
wealthy class costs something like five shillings, or $1.25 
a spoonful. A woman dies of starvation at the other end 
of London, eating next to nothing herself in order that her 
little ones might have what poor scraps of food there were. 
Thousands of men, women and children in England get up 
hungry in the morning, are hungry all day, and go to bed 
hungry at night. The price of a single spoonful of caviar 
would save one of them from hunger for a week. Think 
of the cynical heartlessnes which lavishes enormous sums 
upon palate-pleasure and stomach-satisfaction at a time 
when so much misery and hunger exists among the poor! 
What must her Colonial Premiers, occasionally visiting 
London, think of a ''mother country" which in the same 
year sends to Germany three thousand of its skilled workers 
from dockyards, who can find no work at home, refuses 
her Colonies a preferential tariff and unloads upon them 
thousands of her hungry unemployed, and lavishes upon a 
Coronation display millions of money that would be far 
better spent in relieving from distress the army of helpless, 
suffering, and wretched Englishmen unable to get work or 
support their hungry families. America, of her bountiful 



96 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

charity, has sent in times past many shiploads of grain and 
provisions to starving Ireland in stress and famine, and 
through her Irish-Americans is to-day sending enormous 
amounts of gold annually to the ''old folks" and others 
left behind. But with such conditions as now exist in Eng- 
land between the wealthy and poorer classes, the millennium 
is indeed far off. 

American money is not only a present and future bless- 
ing to Ireland, but possesses also an absorbing fascination 
to England's bluest and proudest patricians. Many a noble 
English house tottering to its fall has had its foundations 
underpinned and its walls buttressed by a pile of American 
dollars. Witness a few of the peers of England who within 
recent years have married American heiresses — likewise the 
estimated dowries of the brides : 

Duke of Marlborough, married Miss Consuelo Vanderbilt,.$io,ooo,ooo 

Eighth Duke of Marlborough (late), married Mrs. Lillian 

Hammersley of New York 3,000,000 

Duke of Roxburghe, married Miss May Goelet of New 

York 10,000,000 

Duke of Manchester, married Miss Zimmerman 2,000,000 

Eighth Duke of Manchester (late), married Miss Con- 
suelo Yznaga 1,000,000 

Earl of Craven, married Miss Bradley Martin of New 

York 1,000,000 

Earl of Strafford (late), married Mrs. Cora Colgate 1,000,000 

Earl of Dosoughmore, married Miss Grace of New York.. 500,000 

Lord Curzon, married Miss Mary Leiter of Chicago 5,000,000 

Earl of Yarmouth, married Miss Ahce Thaw of Pitts- 
burgh 1,000,000 

Earl of Suffolk, married Miss Daisy Leiter of Chicago. .Not stated. 

Fifth Marquis of Anglesey (late), married Miss King of 

Georgia " 

Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, married Miss Davies 
of New York 

Earl of Essex, married Miss Adela Grant of New York.. " 




Introduction of Two Distinguished 
Foreigners 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 97 

Earl of Oxford, married Miss Louise Corbin of New 

York Not stated. 

Lord Malcolm of Poltalloch (late), married Mrs. Gard- 
ner Lister 

Lord Randolph Churchill, married Miss Nellie Jerome of 
New York 

Few international marriages have resulted happily to 
American brides, either in England or on the Continent. 
The domestic trials of the Duchess of Marlborough, for- 
merly Consuelo Vanderbilt, resulted in the absolute refusal 
by the Duchess to resume her position at the head of the 
Blenheim household after disclosure of the Duke's real ® 
character. 

Lady Churchill, daughter of the late Leonard Jerome, 
of New York, after divorcing Lord Randolph Churchill, 
married George Cornwallis-West, of the famous Corn- 
wallis-West family of England, and subsequently again 
sought release from marital ties. 

The Countess of Yarmouth, after enduring the financial 
extravagance and conjugal indifference of her titled hus- 
band for three years, divorced him and has since been 
happily married to an American gentleman. 

These are only examples of scores of cases where Ameri- 
can women possessing wealth, beauty and culture, have 
wedded aristocratic foreigners only to find happiness im- 
possible. During the past fifty-five years nearly four hun- 
dred and fifty American girls have married titled Euro- 
peans and it is estimated by those in close touch with such 
things abroad that one hundred and sixty of these girls 
brought to their husbands dowries aggregating $161,000,- 
000 in cold American cash. In the great majority of these 
marriages this cash has been squandered in the most ex- 
travagant manner by the husband, who has proved anything 
but thoughtful or dutiful. This realization of a grave mis- 



98 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

take has resulted in many separations and suits for divorce 
against these exponents of an effete and fortune-hunting 
nobility. 

The curse of wedded unhappiness that seems to pursue 
marriages of American girls to titled foreigners is also 
noticeable in similar Continental alliances. The Gould- 
Castellane match was one of the most prominent inter- 
national-marriage mistakes. The Count was an impover- 
ished French nobleman, upon whom, in accordance with 
French custom, a settlement was made, amounting to about 
$17,000,000. For several years thereafter, Parisians en- 
joyed the continuous performance of Count Boni as a 
spender of American dollars. His enormous extravagances 
finally resulted in a divorce obtained by his wife, who how- 
ever, undiscouraged by her first matrimonial venture, soon 
afterward married Prince de Sagan, an uncle of Count 
Boni de Castellane. 

Another tragic international mesalliance was the marriage 
of Helen Morton, a very wealthy American girl, daughter 
of the Vice-President, Levi P. Morton, to the Due de Valen- 
cay, a member of the famous Talleyrand family. The con- 
stant appeals made by the Due to Mr. Morton for money, 
in addition to his "settlement," resulted in an advance to 
him of $500,000, mostly to discharge mortgages on the 
Talleyrand estates. His wife left him after learning that 
he was lavishing this money on other women. 

Another instance is that of Miss Bessie B. Curtis, of 
Boston, who married the eccentric Marquis de Perigord. 
When the Marquis ceased, for excellent reasons, to re- 
ceive an enormous allowance, he neglected her for other 
women. A divorce resulted, after which the Marquis mar- 
ried Mrs. Richard Stevens, of New York, who later, like the 
first wife, found his eccentricities so unbearable that she 
also secured a divorce. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED .99 

Miss Eva Bryant Mackay, step-daughter of John W. 
Mackay, of New York, married Prince Ferdinand, of Col- 
onna. Her wedding presents were worth close to a million 
dollars, and her father settled $2,500,000 on the prince. In 
after years there was a tear shed by the bride for every 
dollar. She found her husband was no different from other 
noblemen who marry American girls for their money, and 
freedom finally granted by the divorce court was the end 
of this brilliant alliance. 

The story of Miss Edith Collins, of New York, heiress 
to $7,000,000, who married Count Czaykowski, is another 
example. After squandering a large portion of this for- 
tune, the Count's brutal treatment of his wife resulted in 
the legal separation that eventually brought her relief. 

Perhaps the most deceived woman who ever married a 
foreign nobleman and got rid of him as quickly as she 
could, was Miss Hannah Heason, of Grand Rapids, Mich. 
She married Count Leopold de Melville, and after a few 
months her titled husband eloped with another woman. 
Then came disclosures of two other marriages, and upon 
further investigation it was discovered that the Count had 
a number of other wives scattered here and there over the 
country. 

The list of marriages where the American brides found 
their husband's title no recompense for conjugal unhappi- 
ness, might be continued indefinitely. And likewise the pur- 
chase of foreign titles by wealthy American girls will doubt- 
less continue indefinitely, to the enrichment of worthless, 
impoverished noblemen and the sad experience of deluded 
brides. 

And what, asks an eminent observer of things English, 
is this nobility, this "British aristocracy," that sells its titles 
to American pork-packers, *'forty-niners," and cattle kings, 
and whose degenerate blood is revitalized and debts paid 



loo JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

through these American alliances? It is not an aristocracy 
of birth or ancestry like the French, for its sources lack 
both purity and quality of blood lineage. William the 
Conqueror himself was illegitimate, and his mother the 
daughter of an humble tanner of Falaise. Even the mother 
of the great Queen Elizabeth was the daughter of a plain 
English gentleman. Here too is another instance, says 
Collier. The master of a Westminster pot-house married his 
pot-girl, who becoming a widow married a lawyer named 
Hyde. Hyde afterward became Lord Chancellor, and the 
daughter married the Duke of York and became the mother 
of Mary and Anne Stewart, both afterward queens of Eng- 
land. It is evident, therefore, that if queens of England 
may have a barmaid for grandmother, lesser mortals need 
not concern themselves too much on the subject of ancestry. 

William the Conqueror divided England among the com- 
manders of his army, conferring some twenty earldoms, not 
one of which exists to-day. Nor, according to the record, 
do any honors remain of those conferred by Henry I, 
Henry II, Richard I, or John. All the dukedoms created 
from Edward III to Charles II, except Norfolk, Somerset 
and Cornwall (the title held by the Prince of Wales) have 
perished. Of all the earldoms conferred by the Normans, 
Plantagenets and Tudors, only eleven remain, six of which 
are merged in other honors. The House of Lords to-day 
does not number among its members a single descendant 
of any of the barons who were chosen to enforce Magna 
Charta, or any descendant of the peers who fought at Agin- 
court. There is only one family in all the realm, Wrottes- 
leys, which can boast of a male descent from the date of the 
institution of the Garter, 1349. 

The present House of Lords is a conspicuously demo- 
cratic body. Seventy peers were ennobled on account of dis- 
tinction in the practice of law. The Dukes of Leeds trace 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED loi 

back to a cloth worker, the Earls of Radnor to a Turkey 
merchant, the Earls of Craven to a tailor. The families of 
Dartmouth, Ducie, Pomfret, Tankerville, Dormer, Romney, 
Dudley, Fitzwilliam, Cowper, Leigh, Darnley, Hill and 
Normanby all sprang from London shops and counting- 
houses, and that not so very long ago. Ashburton, Carring- 
ton, Belper, Overstone, Mount Stephen, Hindlip, Burton, 
Battersea, Glenesk, Aldenham, Cheylesmere, Lister, Ave- 
bury, Burnham, Bidulph, Northcliffe, Numburnholme, 
Winterstoke, Rothschild, Brassey, Revelstoke, Strathcona, 
and others too many to mention, have taken their places 
among the peers by virtue of long purses gained in trade. 

"Wealth, however got, in England makes 
Lords of mechanics, gentlemen of rakes. 
Antiquity and birth are needless here, 
'Tis impudence and money makes the peer. 
Great families of yesterday we show, 
And Lords whose parents were the Lord knows who." 

It is a stated fact that the adult males in a Town Meeting 
in Hingham, Massachusetts, for example, could trace back 
to male ancestors who attended that same Town Meeting 
a hundred years before, in greater numbers, in proportion 
to their total number, than could the members of the House 
of Lords to ancestors who had sat in that same chamber. 

And forasmuch as the Association of High German No- 
bility decided a while ago that an American girl can never 
be a duchess or a highness, even though she marries a duke, 
it appears high time that Americans informed themselves 
as to just how they stand socially in the estimation of some 
Europeans. Roughly speaking, the order of precedence is 
like this: 

The Upper Upper Classes, including kings, kaisers and 
members of the Krupp and Rothschild families. 

Upper Upper Classes — (No trade.) 



I02 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

Middle Upper Classes — (Birth-marks traded for pot- 
tage). 

Lower Upper Classes — (Scan checks closely). 

Lowest Upper Classes — (Castles begin to turn into 
breweries here). 

The Upwards Classes, including those between the lowest 
upper classes and the 

Welter Classes, which include the Upper Middle, Middle 
Middle and Lower Middle Classes. Next come the 

Upper Lower Classes — (No birth-marks). 

Middle Lower Classes — (Trade). 

Lower Lower Classes — (No pottage). 

Criminal Classes, exclusive of those who have inherited 
criminality along with their titles. 

Insane and Idiot Classes, exclusive of those so afflicted 
who can prove that they belong nearer the head of the pro- 
cession. 

Americans, 
Note. — Americans reading this list begin at the end and read 
backwards. 

However, this is digressing from English weather. Let 
us get back to the subject. There is a crying need in John 
Bull's island for a tourist hand-book entitled "English into 
American," for the purpose of translating some of the 
strange words and sayings of the island vernacular into 
what the English call our ''Yankee dialect." I have a small 
book entitled "French into English and English into 
French." It contains imaginary conversations with hotel 
proprietors, railway officials, the washwoman, cafe waiters, 
cabmen and other natives whom one is likely to meet, but it 
does not include policemen, the fire department, what to 
say when run over by a motor car, how to register a letter 
or enquire the way back to the hotel, where to get a bonds- 
man over night, and a lot of other important things that 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 103 

might occur when least expected. The book is also singu- 
larly incomplete as to an index, for when you have read the 
necessary question to the waiter, the cabby, or whoever the 
victim may be, the answer you get is never like the one in 
the book, but usually contains half a mile of French words 
delivered from a rapid-fire gun. Still the book is a treasure. 
I am fond of reading it. The interest of the plot is always 
sustained and never grows dull, in which respect it is far 
superior to a French dictionary. Par example, as the book 
says, we wish to learn something as to our small dog, who 
desires to go with us from Paris to Dieppe perhaps. We 
approach the French guard at the railway statiton and state 
the case. According to the book, the guard replies as fol- 
lows : 

"Monsieur, les chiens ne sont pas admis dans les voitures 
des voyageurs. lis sont musseles et places dans les caisses 
speciales." - That is plain and to the point. It signifies that 
the dog is not permitted to ride in the passenger car, but 
is muzzled and put into a receptacle designed especially 
for him, and this information is conveyed to you with many 
a profound bow and regret. In America the reply would 
be, "NIT ! Trun de pup in de baggage-car !" 

Now observe the real thing, in contrast to the book. The 
dog having signified his desire to accompany us to Dieppe, 
is tucked comfortably under your arm out of sight, a dog- 
ticket purchased for him (price always one-half a third 
class fare) and you proceed to your railway compartment, 
where the guard pockets a franc and instantly becomes ab- 
solutely blind on his dog-side, and also deaf and dumb if 
desired. My daughter has carried her pet dog all over 
Europe in this way, and created an epidemic of official color 
blindness wherever we journeyed. 

Observe now the mystic workings of such a book in 
England. Take for example, the "washlady." In France 



104 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

a man's shirt is a chemise. That is to say "chemise" is the 
French word for a man's shirt. And chemise is also the 
French word for a garment that forms a not unimportant 
part of the feminine wardrobe. Consequently your laundry 
list may easily become confusing. But in England you may 
do even worse than that, and the virtuous indignation of 
a British matron who imagines herself "being made game 
of," even if she be only an humble washlady, is something 
to avoid at any cost. Wherefore it behooves one to be- 
hoove, and allow the landlady to make out his first laundry 
list. And certainly he will learn something to his advan- 
tage. In the Garden of Life, let us discriminate between 
peaches and lemons. 

The English bed is a law unto itself. They are all alike, 
big double affairs with four posts and innumerable cover- 
ings and usually include a feather-bed. They are wide, 
comfortable abiding places, and while it requires some time 
to warm one of them up on a cold night before going to 
sleep, the discomfort is more than offset by the cosy nest 
in which you wake up next morning and doze comfortably 
while someone builds your grate-fire for you. Considering 
how English servants go about building a fire in an open 
grate, it is amazing how few house conflagrations there 
are in cities and towns. Such a thing as a "blower," that 
common article made of sheet-iron and propped up before 
a newly-lighted fire to create a draught until the coal is 
well alight, is practically unknown. The men-servants and 
maids know a trick worth two of that, and simply open out 
a newspaper and spread it perpendicularly before the fire, 
where the draught holds it tightly in place and the flames 
roar merrily behind. Suddenly a little flame will reach 
out, the paper catches fire, and pouf ! the whole newspaper 
vanishes in a blazing whirl. This frequently results in a. 
chimney filled with burning soot, from which belches forth 




River Villa at Twickenham 




South-Down Chops 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 105 

a volume of thick, yellow smoke that smells like leather and 
sometimes nearly suffocates people in the street. A catas- 
trophe of this kind amounts to nothing with English people, 
however — the chimney finally burns itself out, and unless 
the local "bobby" complains nobody else appears to care. 
The first time I saw a chimney on fire in London, I lost con- 
siderable valuable time waiting on the opposite side of the 
street to see the fire department arrive. From the amount 
of smoke it looked like a conflagration worth waiting for, 
and I wondered that the passersby took the matter so in- 
indifferently. I finally went over and rattled the brass 
knocker on the front door, and informed the rather indig- 
nant maid that the house was on fire. "Garn, it's honly the 
chimney, you silly," and she shut the door with a bang that 
was eloquent of her opinion. I waited round the neighbor- 
hood for quite a while, hoping to see the house well on fire 
and the servant come shrieking to a front window with her 
back hair singed, so that I might shout to her, **Why, it's 
only the chimney^ you silly!" But the smoke died away, 
and the chance for repartee also, and all that I got out of 
it was a vile burnt-leather taste that stayed in my mouth the 
rest of the day. 

Nevertheless I could never get accustomed to seeing my 
newspaper go up the chimney like a chariot of fire, and 
what with my frequent lurid arguments with chambermaids 
and landladies, I never got any real satisfaction out of an 
English grate-fire. That was not the only reason, either. 
The English grate is about three feet square, but only holds 
one shovelful of coal, being filled in with bricks at each side 
by economical landladies who have the national dislike of 
beholding anyone else at all comfortable. 

The English bed, however, is not only comfortable, but 
capacious. It is a very different thing from the Continental 
variety. You will seldom or never find a double-bed on the 



io6 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

Continent, more especially in Germany, where narrow single 
beds are the rule. The reasons for this comport well with 
the sober, prosaic and serious characteristics of the German 
people, for the reasons are based solidly on hygienic rules 
of health. In other words, it is more conducive to health 
to sleep alone than to sleep with another person — adult or 
child. Nothing is said in the hygienic rules about sleeping 
with a dog or a pet kitten, nor is there any reference to 
other lively things, upholstered with even more legs and 
teeth. In Italy, on the contrary, you may sleep from four 
to six in a bed, if you do not mind children, and will often 
find a goat in the party as well. But that is another story. 
The German bed will remind you of the English bed, be- 
cause it is so different. In Germany, for instance, if the 
room is intended for two persons, there will be two single 
beds, made up exactly alike and pushed together side by 
side, and Mein Herr and his Frau are tucked therein as snug 
and comfortable as the traditional bug in a rug. 

Now a single bed is all right in its place, but as I had 
frequent occasion to explain more or less violently to Ger- 
man landlords, there exist sundry people whom Heaven 
never designed for single beds and who therefore prefer a 
double one, even if only to be occupied by one person. I 
like plenty of room to sprawl and be comfortable. I do not 
like to be cramped into either a ship's berth, a coffin or a 
German single bed. The song descriptive of *'A pretty HI' 
cot down in southern Tennessee," does not appeal to me, 
for I have no use for a cot, either. And so when I first 
beheld a German bed, surmounted by the inevitable square- 
shaped eider-down puff, I had my doubts. But I compromised 
by having another single bed moved up beside mine, creat- 
ing a hurry-skurry among the chambermaids to piece out 
the bed-coverings so as to spread over both beds in a Chris- 
tian manner and allow room for a little boy to stretch him- 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 107 

self. There was a good deal of comment on my upsetting 
of the national custom, and even the landlord came up to 
view the new arrangement with pity and contempt. He 
said something from the German poets about "Two beds 
with but a single thought, two beds made up as one," and 
I also said something about the landlord, in the New York 
dialect, but as neither of us understood the other we bowed 
politely and let it go at that. I got the impression, how- 
ever, as I heard him quoting from the "Goetterdaemerung" 
in the hallway outside, that he was disturbed about some- 
thing. 

Well, I went to bed. It was a cold, frosty night and the 
room was poorly heated. There were two of those down- 
puffs instead of one — boy's size and neither of them large 
enough to warm up a fried oyster. If you pulled one up 
under your chin, you froze everything below your knees, 
and if you covered up your feet you had to sit up and slap 
your arms all night. It was difficult enough to even follow 
one puff about — to manage two was a contract. I finally 
got under them and went to sleep. I woke up later and 
found both puffs on the floor and icicles on my knees. Then 
I whiled away some hours in alternately sleeping and chasing 
puffs around on the floor — and somewhere in the pale cold 
light of a winter's dawn I arose and wrapped my fur-lined 
overcoat around my frost-encrusted nightie and thereafter 
slept like the Polar bear in his hibernating den, warm, snug 
and comfortable. I was dreaming quietly of falling out of 
an aeroplane and landing with a dull thud on somebody's 
roof when I awoke again and found myself on the floor 
between the two beds, with bed-clothes and puffs piled upon 
me like an avalanche ! The beds had simply separated, and 
I had slid down into space as gently and softly as a snow- 
flake falls upon the earth. I refer to that kind of a snow- 
flake that weighs two hundred and fifteen pounds avoir- 



io8 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

dupois. I was not seriously damaged, however, and after 
due reflection, being quite comfortable in my fur coat and 
the enveloping puffs, and feeling sure that now at least the 
d — owny things couldn't fall off the bed any more, I curled 
up in my new nest and slept royally until Heinrich came in 
to build my fire in the tall German monument that does 
duty as a stove. I could hear Heinrich trotting around the 
two beds like a wild animal searching for prey, and as with 
many a grunt of "Ach Gott!" he gradually removed the 
debris and assisted me from between the beds, he fairly 
perspired with pent-up curiosity. I told Heinrich that I 
usually slept that way, and judging from the absorbed in- 
terest with which I was regarded by everyone from the land- 
lord to the chambermaids, I have reason to think they all 
believed it. 

Apropos of the weather again, there is another kind of 
fog that occasionally comes to visit London — a dreamy and 
misty effect which is called a "white fog," by contrast with 
the awful and "yellow" visitation. The white fog is like a 
thin smoke — you will notice it in the hotel corridors and 
public rooms and imagine that someone has a smoky wood- 
fire in an open grate. It is obstructive out of doors to only 
a limited extent, except on the river, where it rolls along in 
fleecy clouds that alternately obscure or reveal the shores 
and water-craft. In comparison with a yellow fog, a white 
one is of little consequence. But when the yellow fog comes 
you cannot see a man two feet away. At such times, men 
bearing torches or lanterns held out on poles, walk in the 
streets at noonday ahead of vehicles, and as a rule dis- 
cover more obstacles with the end of the pole than with the 
lantern-light. 

Bloomsbury and Bayswater are districts in London that 
are given up almost entirely to the boarding-house industry, 
and in these more or less exclusive localities reside a large 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 109 

number of people, Americans and others, who for various ^ 
reasons prefer a comparatively private and undisturbed life 
to the publicity and bustle of hotels. Many of the Lon- 
doners also prefer this manner of living to the trials and 
troubles attendant upon metropolitan housekeeping. The 
landlady, proprietress, or head of such an establishment, is 
of the same genus all over England, differing only in spe- 
cies — with the same predatory disposition and mannerisms, 
and the selfsame methods of conducting business that have 
existed ever since Mr. Pickwick boarded with the Widow 
Bardell. The majority of English landladies are widows, 
while most of the others support a male encumbrance in the 
shape of a husband, who is usually quite willing to be sup- 
ported. In very many of these boarding-places you can 
live entirely by yourself, with meals served privately in your . 
own sitting-room by a white-capped and aproned maid, who '^' 
lays the table and brings everything to you in its proper 
order. This is a great improvement over the ordinary 
boarding-house dining-room where the boarders meet on 
a common level and there is little or no personal privacy or 
exclusiveness. But however localities, people, boarding- 
houses or manners of service may differ, the type and style 
of the genus landlady never alters and her peculiar laws 
are as arbitrarily grooved as ever were those of Medes or 
Persians. 

On the exact morning of each recurring seventh day of 
the week, you will observe in exceedingly plain view on 
your breakfast plate or tucked bashfully under your ser- 
viette your weekly statement of "board and residence," .- 
which includes *'fires, lights, boots and service." Shortly 
afterward you may notice a subdued tapping at the door 
and in response to your "Come in," the usually rubicund 
countenance of the landlady appears, with polite enquiries 
as to your enjoyment of breakfast, the rainy weather we're 



no JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

having, and so on, during which you produce sundry gold 
of the realm, receiving in return her cordial expression of 
continued trustful affection, together w^ith sundry bobs, 
tanners, pennies and fardens in change. It is remarkable 
to what heights of cordiality a landlady can soar when the 
financial sunshine radiates its mellow warmth at so much 
per, and also how sad and marked the difference if your 
"ship has not come in," and your American drafts, checks 
or other evidences of wealth are unfortunately delayed. 

The genus English landlady may be of all styles, shapes, 
ages and sizes, but they all fly the same "social status" flag, 
married, widows and old maids alike, and the story of her 
life will be gratefully poured into your sympathetic ear if 
you betray the slightest willingness to listen. All of them 
tell it about the same way, with but little variation. Eng- 
lish landladies are invariably descended from "gentry" and 
possess very wealthy relatives who live in luxury and ex- 
hibit a most cruel disregard of poor relations in the major- 
ity of instances, not even showing the faintest interest in 
your poor landlady's earthly existence. Forced therefore 
by a fate especially frosty to this particular guild, to ac- 
quire some sort of a genteel income, they advertise in the 
daily papers for "paying guests," in which is polite English 
for "boarders" or "lodgers." The "paying guests" occupy 
the better portion of the premises, and the landlady's 
hitherto lonely or precarious existence as the decayed ex- 
ponent of an alleged noble ancestry is thus rendered more 
or less commercially safe through the income paid her by 
the merry boarders. 

The prevailing style in landladies also varies. There is 
the shrewd, middle-aged harpy whose business experience 
has razor-sharpened her eyes, tongue, nose and temper, and 
whose scale of charges shifts according to whether you are 
American or English, or, on the contrary, you may be for- 



A 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED iii 

tunate enough to discover a pleasant, agreeable and accom- 
modating hostess, one of the exceptions which prove a rule. 
But the latter are few and far between. As a rule, English 
landladies are out for the needful, and are correspondingly- 
ravenous. They charge what they judge you will stand and 
give you in return as little as they dare. You will pay for 
many ''extras," coal at a sixpence a scuttle being the most 
common. In many houses the gas is shut off at eleven P. M., 
and if you happen to have company, or wish to read after 
that hour you can light the candle which always stands at 
the head of your bed! As previously stated, your meals 
will be served in your room, or you can join the other ''pay- 
ing guests" in the dining-room, according to circumstances. 
And unless you take a cup of tea in the afternoon, dropping 
all other pleasure and business therefor, you might as well 
not go to church on Sunday, for you are violating one of 
England's most sacred social canons and will be henceforth 
regarded with suspicion and have no valid excuse for liv- 
ing. As a beverage I have personally about as much use 
for tea as I have for red ink, but I found it easier to fol- 
low the line of least resistance and join the mourners round 
the "afternoon tea" table, than to argue or fight about it. 

It would also appear that the more "highly connected" 
these people are with mythical "genteel" ancestors the 
further has been the fall and the longer their distance from 
home, so to speak. Apparently, when a member of the 
English gentry metamorphoses into a landlady they leave 
behind all that gentle womanly charm and grace which 
usually denotes high birth and education, acquiring instead 
a singular air of superiority over the common herd, and in 
some cases misplacing their h's and doing other curious 
things not at all characteristic of the nobility. 

"May I enquire your name, madam," said I to my pros- 
pective landlady. 



112 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

'*My name is Mrs. 'awkins, sir." 

"Mrs. 'enery 'awkins?" said I, jokingly. 

"No, sir — not 'enry, sir — Hedward." 

I recollect another dignified and pompous landlady, de- 
scendant of a "very old Scotch clan," as she frequently re- 
minded us, who after having stated her terms per week for 
"paying guests," deliberately charged us double for the 
second week on the ground that we could afford it and she 
needed the money ! My courteous protest was as the bleat- 
ing of the lamb before the raging wolf, and when finally 
her storm of words and reasons subsided. I forsook the 
Scotch remnant who had so literally "descended" from 
alleged ancestors, and engaged other rooms whose owners 
possessed less "noble ancestry" and more common honesty. 

On another occasion, during our sojourn in the Midlands, 
I noticed the frequent proud reference made by the land- 
lady to "Sir John," her husband's father, and one day I en- 
quired where he had been knighted by the King, since the 
King had never visited that part of England. She could 
not remember. One day I happened to observe a framed 
certificate hung in the hallway, which proved to be "Sir 
John's" certificate as a Sir Knight of a local organization 
known as the "Buffalos !" I said, "Is that where he got the 
title of Sir Knight?" "Oh, yes; certainly. Sir John was 
one of the leading Knights of the Order. He always car- 
ried the banner, or something!" "But, my dear woman," 
said I, "a Knight of the 'Buffs,' which is an excellent or- 
der, no doubt, is very different from being a, member of 
the nobility." She was considerably disturbed, and we 
heard no more about "Sir John" after that. At yet another 
place, the landlady's old maid sister officiated as waitress, 
and not only served our meals, but undertook to remain 
and entertain us in our rooms during the repast, and also 
offered to play our piano and sing! As she could not be 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 113 

made to comprehend sufficiently to withdraw peaceably, 
she now sleeps under the currant bushes in the back garden, 
where I finally buried her after a severe struggle, during 
which our dinner cooled off and was entirely spoiled. The 
family were a good deal annoyed about the incident at first, 
but knowing her peculiarities, did not really blame me in the 
matter and eventually even deducted the dinner from the 
weekly bill. 

I have observed that English people treat both landlady 
and servants as the dirt under their feet, entirely ignoring 
their existence except when giving orders. This is abso- 
lutely the only correct treatment. They are used to it and 
expect nothing else. If treated courteously or at all pleas- 
antly they neither appreciate or understand it, regard you 
as of practically their own class, or "no class," and take 
advantage accordingly. The proverbial consideration 
shown by Americans toward those in inferior places, is ut- 
terly lost and wasted in England and only serves to invite 
being "stung" in a hundred ways of neglect and petty rob- 
bery. Their "betters" never notice them, and would think 
far less of you for so doing. Given the slightest encour- 
agement, a landlady will bore you with her private history 
and personal affairs, making innumerable inquiries regard- 
ing your own as well, and intrude upon you at all hours 
of the day for this purpose. Your privacy will disappear, 
your peace of mind vanish, and you will be forced to meekly 
endure her or change your lodging. The genus English 
landlady, or "hostess," is everywhere the same old story, 
differing only in style of binding, and one reading is usually 
sufficient. If all the landladies in England, good, bad and 
indifferent, including those descended from "Ryalty" and 
those descended from Scotch-itch ancestry, could be im- 
mersed in the English Channel for about fifteen minutes, 
their successors would at least be free from these inherited 



114 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

traits, and the new army of "paying guests" would hear 
less about *'high-class connections," ''noble ancestry," and 
the famous things "my great-uncle Oliver Cromwell" used 
to do ! 

Finding a bathtub in a London boarding-house is not such 
a rare experience now as it was only a few years ago. I 
remember what a thrill I had when on enquiring in refer- 
ence to a room, I was assured by the landlady that they had 
recently put in a fine, large bathtub. The house was 
situated not far from the British Museum. Shortly after 
my arrival I enquired where the bathtub was and was told 
that it was in the basement. So I made myself ready, 
donned a bathrobe and set out, guided by a chambermaid, 
for the tub. The basement proved to be a sort of cellar, 
dark and gloomy. The maid handed me a candle, and dis- 
creetly withdrew. She apparently regarded me as a dan- 
gerous lunatic. I approached the tub. The sight of it 
startled me considerably, for it looked for all the world 
like one of the stone sarcophagi in the British Museum. 
There was no place for water to run into it, and the only 
; way of emptying it was with a bucket. I learned afterward 
that it was filled once a day. The water was cold, the cellar 
was cold, and I did not like the looks of the tub. I gazed 
hard at its massive stone interior, and then remembered 
that the summer before I had noticed several cracked and 
discarded sarcophagi lying around outside the Museum. 
It struck me that this might be one of them. Anyhow I 
did not take the bath. I went back and made some inquiries 
of the maid, and after that I had my bath brought into my 
room in the usual way, which was in a tin pitcher. 

You must go to Paris, however, to properly study the 
bathtub question. Outside the modern hotels, you will 
find little evidence of either tub or bath, as understood by 
Americans. But you will find partial compensation in other 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 115 

respects — the quaint lodgings, pretty back gardens, flowers 
and vines, and your essentially Parisian environment. I 
once stayed for several days in Paris at a charming quaint 
pension that in other days had been a convent, situated in 
the heart of the city near the Pare Monceau. The build- 
ing has been reconstructed, but retains many of its old char- 
acteristics. The former chapel is now the dining-room, and. 
the life-sized Saviour on the cross is still suspended half- 
way up the western wall. Upstairs, along the old dor- 
mitory passage, are little ''cells" at frequent intervals, like 
walled-in cupboards, once used by sorrowing penitents for 
prayer and meditation, while at the rear of the building 
were two or three real bona fide cells for those who re- 
quired a real bona fide punishment. At the rear of this 
building is a great garden, surrounded on three sides by a 
forty-foot wall, and in this fair garden formerly walked the 
nuns with their breviaries, or rested on the wooden seats, 
secure from prying eyes and the wicked world outside. 

My rooms overlooked this garden and incidentally I felt 
very proud of living in a convent, which is something of 
which few men can boast. I discovered that convent life 
possesses many advantages not to be found in the whirl and 
racket of a modern hotel. I was never locked in a cell 
while there, since not having been supplied with a copy of 
the rules, I never broke any. There are a great many men 
of my acquaintance who couldn't get into a convent for 
love or money, and who as a matter of fact would not be 
allowed within a mile of one, but I am different. Never 
shall I forget those happy hours I passed while studying 
my Baedecker breviary in that charming garden, to the ac- 
companiment of a pint of Beaune and my faithful meer- 
schaum. There was a sedate old tom-cat attached to our 
convent circle, I remember, "Monsieur Bolo" by name, and 
also a frisky Tabby known as "Mam'selle Poussette," but 
as Kipling says, that is another story. 



ii6 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

My rooms were not furnished with modern improve- 
ments, neither hot water, steam heat, or electric lights. 
They do not have these things in convents, I understand, 
so I did not expect them. There was also a marked ab- 
sence of soap — probably nuns do not have frequent occa- 
sion to use soap, and monks never do. I have never seen a 
monk who would not have been considerably improved by 
a thorough dry-cleaning process. )My wash-bowl and 
pitcher were about the size of a cup and saucer, and because 
I required more than a cup of water to wash in, they re- 
garded me as something unusual, tres extraordinaire, for a 
teacup holds more water than a Frenchman uses for a full 
bath. Therefore whenever I wanted a bath, I was accus- 
tomed to notify the concierge a day or two in advance, and 
she would watch out for what I called the "life-saving 
corps" — a man who came through the street every few days 
with a two-wheeled cart containing a metal bathtub, boiler 
of hot water, a large pail and some other things. If you 
desire a bath, he halts his business establishment before 
your door, carries the tub upstairs to you, fills it with water, 
then patiently sits down on his cart, lights his pipe, and 
waits while you finish with the tub. It is an enormous ad- 
vertisement for you — a wondering and excited murmur 
spreads around among all the neighbors, "M'sieur So-and-So 
is having a bath — yes, it is true — see, the bath-man is wait- 
ing for his tub. Oh, Mon Dieu, what waste of money!" 
If you are American or English you furnish your own soap. 
If you are French, you save the expense. I do not know 
how they used to arrange this bath business in the old 
halcyon convent days — I have enquired, but nobody seems 
to know anything about it — they throw out their hands, 
shrug up the shoulders and say "Mon Dieu!" It is too 
many for them. The nuns probably had other arrange- 
ments, though probably they — well, anyhow, the answer 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 117 

went away with the convent days and the big white bonnets 
and flowing robes, and only the conundrum is left behind to 
trouble mortal men. 

The Fourth of July in London is a "Sad July Fourth" 
indeed, for the Briton — a day of mourning and humiliation. 
It is perhaps expressed by the fable of the Englishman and 
Irishman who arrived in New York on that date for the 
first time. There was the usual din of cannon, bells, pistols 
and firecrackers. "What's all the row about?" asked the 
Englishman. " 'Tiz the Foorth av July, begorra," said 
Pat. "This is the day we licked yez !" In London it is 
made a day of banquets, speeches and general celebration 
by all Americans, whether resident or visiting. Some of the 
newspapers publish petty sneers, veiled behind attempted 
witticisms, and as a sample of that prevailing English ig- 
norance regarding all things American, the following is of 
interest, from the London Globe; 

SAD JULY FOURTH. 

No Pumpkin Pie at London Restaurants in Honor of 
Independence Day. 

Wherei's your George Washington noo? This question ought to 
be asked of every American who strolls along the Strand to-day. 
For it is Independence Day, the "glorious Fourth," and according 
to almost hoary tradition, every really patriotic American ought to 
eat nothing but pumpkin pie, clam chowder, planked shad and that 
sort of thing. But a round of all the principal hotels and restaur- 
ants where Americans dine shows that not a single American dish 
is on the menu to-day. 

Not many years ago the American in London used to demand his 
favorite dishes on July 4th. Without neck clams, squirrel soup, or 
soft-shell crabs on toast, life on that day was a blank. But this 
year things are different. Not a single London menu will to-day 
struggle bravely under the inscription, "Picked-up Codfish." From 
Temple bar to the West there will be never a bear steak. Ameri- 
cans are no longer patriotic. 



ii8 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

At the annual American banquet at the Hotel Cecil, the dishes 
will be entirely English or French. America's sons will have to 
scintillate without the aid of green corn, succotash, Virginia ham or 
canteloupe. It is hard. Only one thing will show that it is In- 
dependence Day. American music will be played at all the theatres 
and restaurants." 

"Fancy that," as we say in London ! "Neck clams, 
picked-up codfish, squirrel soup and bear steak" as Inde- 
pendence Day dishes ! It is as if an American newspaper 
should describe the English national dishes as Thames 
shark, broiled live rabbit and native Highland lobster. But 
it will require years of education to instill this into the 
British intellect. A people who still entertain the general 
hazy idea of grizzly bears running wild in American cities, 
and Indians hunting buffalo in New York suburbs, may be 
regarded as hopeless. But the Fourth of July is indeed a 
"Sad July Fourth" for England, for on that day she lost 
what she has ever since been trying to regain — American 
friendship. 

England should be grateful, not spiteful, toward Ameri- 
cans. The money spent in London by visiting Americans 
has more than once saved a depressed London season from 
collapse and London tradesmen from financial disaster. It 
is to "Yankee gold" that Coronations and other great Eng- 
lish festivals owe largely their financial success, and it is 
Americans who keep the great hotels, theatres and prac- 
tically London itself in ready money during the season of 
travel. Should Americans stay at home for a continuous 
twelve months, the steamship lines and English shopkeepers 
would receive a financial shock sufficient to almost unsettle 
British reason! American cash is the Englishman's idol. 
To it he bows down in adoration and for it he will barter 
even his ancestral title. Without Yankee dollars and the 
moral influence of Yankee support among the nations. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 119 

England would not only be to-day in a most unpleasant 
financial dilemma, but one or two aggressive neighbors 
would even now be knocking at her door with twelve-inch 
guns. There is indeed much to love and admire in England, 
but the English disposition has few endearing qualities, and 
the native hue of its complexion is too sicklied o'er with 
the pale cast of insincerity and envy toward Americans. 
But there are people whose presence would spoil even 
Paradise. 

And as thereby illustrating the natural British instinct 
of getting the cart before the horse, politically, internation- 
ally and otherwise, it is recorded that at a recent meeting 
of the British Association, Dr. Adamkiewics read a paper 
upon ''1st der Krebs erblich" ("Is Cancer Hereditary?") 
Unfortunately the programme had it "erdlich," meaning 
"amphibious." So the London newspapers next day an- 
nounced that the doctor had read a paper upon "Is the 
Crab a Sea or Land Animal?" 

It is not probable that the error was ever corrected. The 
English press, like the King, can do no wrong. 

The Thames River is regarded by that great majority 
of English people who have never been off the island and 
who believe nothing unless they see it, as the most won- 
derful piece of water on earth. The Mersey River, with 
Liverpool at its mouth, is a close second. Neither "Tems" 
or "Marsey" amounts to much commercially, however, ex- 
cept for a comparatively short distance inland, beyond Avhich 
limit both rivers are given up to rowboats, punts and ama- 
teur fishermen. The scenery, especially on the Thames, is 
exceedingly pretty, as the river winds about through woods 
and fields, with occasional locks and weirs to vary the 
monotony. Along its banks are situated such famous places 
as Richmond, Hampton Court and Windsor, all beloved of 
royalty past and present, while farther on is the great uni- 



120 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

versity town of Oxford. Sprinkled in between are num- 
berless beautiful private estates, with frequently a cluster 
of English "houseboats" — literally a house upon a boat, the 
flat roof adorned with awning, hammocks, chairs and rugs, 
with vines and flowers growing everywhere. There is 
navigation only for steam launches, or very small passenger 
boats, but the river during the summer season is fairly 
alive with all sorts of tiny craft, most of which religiously 
tie up to the shady bank at 5 P. M. for the ritualistic Eng- 
lish "tea." The Thames is not imposing, being above Rich- 
mond only about the width of a country road. "And they 
call that brook a river!" said an American girl. "I'd like 
to show them the Hudson or the Mississippi." Peace, my 
child, they would not believe you. This is It— behold the 
largest and longest river in all the world! Don't step on 
it, girly; to the English this water is more sacred than the 
river Jordan! 

Other European countries have their rivers, too — Ger- 
many its beautiful Rhine, Belgium the charming Meuse, 
France its exquisite Loire, Spain the Guadalquiver — wind- 
ing among woodland and mountains, dotted with historic 
castles and made famous by poet and artist. The Irish, 
Swiss and Italian Lakes — Killarney, Lucerne and Como — 
even the wild Loch Lomond and Katrine of Scotland, offer 
kindred charms of height and woodland, and one could 
well be content and "happy with either, were t'other dear 
charmer away." America has everything that the Old 
World has and more beside, for everything is on a larger 
scale — her mighty rivers, traversing almost a continent, 
and great lakes, lying like huge inland seas, are no more to 
be compared, however, with Europe's smaller but not 
less attractive beauty-spots of Nature, than are the Adiron- 
dack slopes with our majestic Rockies, or the Scotch High- 
lands with monarchs of the Alpine and Balkan ranges. All 




Alono: the River Thames 




Above Kew Bridge 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 121 

have their diverse and several attractions, following the 
same rule of Nature that makes the violet lovely in its mod- 
esty, and the gorgeous-hued and self-exalting tropical ex- 
otics magnificent by force of contrast. 

All of which brings us naturally and easily again to the 
consideration of our original subject, primarily, the English 
weather, but also incidentally including Americanisms, so- 
called, and "English as she is spoke," already lightly touched 
upon as befits a fine-pointed pen rambling over such large 
extent of subject. 

When an English author writes a novel which includes 
among the other characters an American, or when a British 
playwright includes an American in the cast, both invari- 
ably become tangled by Yankee speech and also by what an 
Englishman believes to be the typical Yankee costume. 
Americans do not wear the stove-pipe hat, swallow-tail coat 
and trousers strapped underneath the boots, commonly at- 
tributed to them as the "sure enough" Yankee outfit, no 
more than the typical Englishman wears the bell-crowned 
top 'at, swallow-tail coat, knickerbockers and mutton-chop 
whiskers, characteristic of the press cartoons. But when it 
comes to Yankee speech, the English writer or playwright 
is hopelessly at sea. He is aware that within the borders 
of his own small island may be heard many dialects — the 
cockney, the coster, the Yorkshire, Lancashire, Devon- 
shire, Lowland and Highland Scotch — more varieties of 
distorted English, indeed, than one author could hope to re- 
produce successfully, yet he makes little or no distinction in 
the speech of two Americans coming from widely separated 
parts of this much larger country. He knows no north, no 
south, no east, no west. All Americans seem to look and 
talk alike to him. 

He is fatuously content to have his imitation Yankee stalk 
through the pages of his novel, or across his stage, wear- 



122 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

ing the invariable slouch hat and goatee, and "guessing," 
''reckoning," and "allowing," with serene disregard of the 
fact that the man who "guesses" lives hundreds of miles 
from the man who "reckons," while neither of them may- 
have ever met the one who "allows." 

Americanisms and more Americanisms and still more, all 
the Americanisms that can be got hold of, heaped high for 
good measure — such is the approved formula for the 
Yankee as he is written down in English fiction. And not 
the least curious feature of the queer business is that the 
supposed Americanisms are often inaccurate, awkwardly 
used, or wholly spurious. 

So much for Buckingham ! Turning now to the real 
thing, "made in England," witness the following, clipped 
from a London newspaper at the time. In July, 1910, a 
party of young ladies who had by a newspaper-coupon 
voting contest been adjudged the most beautiful and popu- 
lar young ladies in the great State of Ohio, U. S. A., were 
enjoying a brief European trip, specially conducted and ex- 
penses paid, as the advertised prize of such contest. The 
London newspapers referred to them as "The Buckeye 
Daisies," which was a hopeless conundrum to the British 
public, who have no idea what "Buckeye" means, or why 
the term was used. The Ohio bean with a dark spot like 
a buckeye is an unknown article in London, and after it 
had been explained the English people were more mixed 
than ever between the bean, the buck and the "Daisies." 
The party attracted considerable attention, being regarded 
as literally the fairest of all America's fair sex and the tour 
although well chaperoned and conducted was referred to as 
something distinctively "American, don'tcherknow !" The 
efforts of the reporter to rise to the occasion and adequately 
reproduce and portray American speech are quoted ver- 
batim : 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 123 

OHIO GIRLS RUSH 'ROUND LONDON. 

Impressions of the Tower and St. Paul's. 

THE TAME RAVEN. 

"Buckeye Daisy" Wondered if it Could Say *'Never More." 

The American Prize Beauties are in London to-day, after "doing" 
the home of the great Shakespeare. The Ohio girls are, above all 
things, patriotic, but during the beautiful drive from Warwick to 
Stratford-on-Avon yesterday four or five of them wavered in their 
allegiance to the United States. 

"I thought," said one, "I could never bear to live away from 
home." 

"As for me," said another, "with all these beautiful hedges and 
cottages and green meadows, I just want to say nothing and go on 
being thankful I'm alive." 

'Sunlight made Stratford-on-Avon an exquisite picture when the 
carriages containing the girls arrived. Shakespeare and all pertain- 
ing to him was the dominant thought. They showed their delight in 
the Shakespeare relics. In the birthplace of the poet there are 
notices up that the ceilings and walls are not to be touched. A 
demure brunette read them carefully, then she sought for her 
scissors in her "grip" and proceeded to dig up a souvenir in the 
shape of a splinter from the floor. 

They rode back to Warwick singing snatches of songs, waving 
hands to little children in the streets, and exclaiming how beauti- 
ful England was. They began to talk about English people in the 
course of the day. "They are of an enquiring turn, anyway," said 
a lady from Columbus, Ohio. "They watch us through the car- 
riage window as if we were curiosities. Threepence a look is my 
charge henceforth." 

"The people are very nice," said another, "but I haven't seen a 
good-looking man since I le'ft the States." 

"Too many mustaches," said another little lady. "I wouldn't 
marry a man with mustaches for anything." 

They came to London thrilling with thoughts of the greatest city 
in the world. They stepped from the train into the midst of a 
crowd that had gathered to receive them. As they entered the 
closed carriages awaiting them, the crowd cheered them heartily 
and the girls waved their handkerchiefs in response. "For the 
first time we have had an example of good British weather," said 
one of them at the hoted. "It made the drive to Stratford-on- 



124 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

t 
Avon delightful, and the fascinating old church and things there 
brought a kind of schoolbook feeling. Fancy walking on the same 
flagstones as Shakespeare walked on! We liked very much an 
English girl driving a dog-cart herself. She was dressed in white 
and was the first stylish girl we have met since we left home. She 
waved her whip to us just like an American girl. We have seen 
a good many English girls and their complexions are just lovely 
and they look real sweet, but we can't say what we really think of 
them till we have talked with them and heard what they have 
got to say. One thing which has surprised us is the way girls of 
fifteen and sixteen wear their hair loose down their backs. In our 
country they braid it, and tie it up when they are ten and eleven. 
We were extremely surprised at seeing women working in the 
fields hay-making. We don't send our women out to work." 

For three hours to-day the "Buckeye Daisies" steeped their souls 
in the Tower and St. Paul's, and have seen the most wonderful 
things of a lifetime sixteen times over. They had a brake and the 
Man from Cook's. After breakfast they walked along the Thames 
from the Royal Hotel to Blackfriars — a distance of some twenty 
yards. They stood and watched the manner in which the traffic 
is regulated and plied the man in blue with questions on various 
topics. 

"I call him real nice," was the comment of one of the girls upon 
an officer. "Wish ours were as obliging." 

The Buckeye Daisies thought the river not a bad old thing for 
its age. 

A statuesque Beefeater at the Tower arch was the first curiosity 
that suspended twenty-one Ohio circulations, and there was an em- 
barrassing silence until one of the Daisies said that he must be 
a Beefeater, because he didn't look like a vegetarian, "she guessed." 

Twenty-one Daisies seemed as though they would swoon at the 
notice, "Beware of Pickpockets," on the staircase to the Armoury. 
They looked contemplatively at the newspaper representative and 
clutched their purses. 

How busy those purring American tongues were at the execu- 
tioner's block! One Daisy thought the axe must have been used 
a mighty lot to get so blunt. And she took a warder by the ear 
and led him to the block, and cooed to him to lay his head in 
the right position. She wanted to master the technique of the 
process. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 125 

Several Daisies said "Land sakes !" and "Oh, my !" at the collar 
that our ancestors tightened on the necks of gentlemen whose con- 
fessions were hard to extract, or not suitable to their purposes. 
"And perhaps the poor dears were speaking the truth all the time," 
drawled one ready maiden. 

"We've just been to Smithfield on the way to London," com- 
mented a dark young lady with a grim pursing of the lips, "and 
now we've come to England's biggest slaughterhouse." It takes an 
American to estimate history without prejudice. 

"Say, gur-rls !" exclaimed a patriot with the flag of the proudest, 
bravest, freest country on earth splashing her trim jacket, "there's 
a raven doing the cakewalk. Wonder if it says 'Never more?'" 
news was gently broken to her that the jets of a British regi- 
ment (in the Tower of London, too) were never permitted to 
quote American authors. 

They saw a suit of horse-armour, presented, said the warder, "to 
Henry the Eighth on the occasion of his marriage." "Which one?" 
flashed the question from a sympathizer with King Henry's eight 
partners. That monarch is not thought a great deal of by the 
Buckeye Daisies. 

They did the Beauchamp Tower in the world's record time of 
I minute 48 3-5 seconds, during which the attendant sold some 
hundreds of picture postcards for Ohio albums. 

Then to the Crown Jewels, where the warder cracked the ancient 
joke that visitors were not expected to take away any of the 
crowns. The Daisies promised, as there isn't a King in Ohio, to 
respect our national susceptibilities and leave all the jewels, in- 
cluding the Kohinoor. Dismal were they, however, when they 
learned the stone was but an imitation. The Man from Cook's 
apologized on behalf of the nation. 

'So the Tower was done with. The Daisies had reams of short- 
hand notes of their conductor's conversation. Some day they will 
be startled to find all that information in the guide-books they rested 
their shorthand slips upon. 

"I'd be more interested if I were less tired," said one fair tourist 
when half St. Paul's had been taken at a gallop. By the time they 
arrived at the Whispering Gallery and the Stone Gallery, the 
capacity of the Daisies for amazement was exhausted. Satiety 
had o'ertaken them. They wanted "to see a meal and get to it in 
double time." 



126 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

This afternoon Ohio's best girls are seeing the sights of the West 
End. 

"I wouldn't go to Westminster Abbey," exclaimed a desperate girl 
in blue, "if you promised to bury me in it. I'm as tired as tired !" 

Now why should the spirit of mortal be proud — espe- 
cially the spirit of an English mortal? Whyfore and where- 
fore does he chuckle in his sleeve at "Yankee speech" and 
pat himself on the back because of his immaculate English 
vernacular? Let us see what his vernacular is, anyhow. 
Behold the deadly parallel, and say whether the speech of 
John Bull is not in truth that of a foreign country, being 
even as an eminent French writer has pronounced it, not 
English, but "English as she is spoke." 

A spool of thread is a "reel of cotton," and the drygoods 
store where you buy it is the "draper's shop." The pen you 
write with is a "nib," your cane is a "stick," your umbrella 
a "gamp," and your rubbers are "galoshes." Your vest in 
New York changes to a "waistcoat" in London, and you 
must never refer publicly to your vest there, because it 
means your undershirt ! A napkin is a "serviette," and you 
do not turn a faucet, but a "tap." Your baggage is "lug- 
gage," and your trunk becomes a "box." A horse is a "gee- 
gee," and a donkey a "moke." In London your silk hat is 
a "top hat," your overcoat a "top coat," and your Derby 
hat may be either a "bowler" or a "billycock." When you 
go up-street you are going to the "top of the road," when 
you go down-street it is to the "bottom of the road," and 
the drug store on the corner is the "chemist's." Alcohol 
is "methylated spirit" — if you ask for alcohol you are di- 
rected to the nearest bar ! A cocktail is a "swizzle," no re- 
lation whatever to its American namesake and well worth 
avoiding. A store is a shop, a shop is a "store," and the 
elevator is a "lift" — and always a slow one. The sign over 
a market is "Victualler and Poulterer," which for a long 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 127 

time I took to be the name of a London firm with innumer- 
able branches. The carpenter becomes a "joiner," and the 
hardware dealer an "ironmonger." If you desire marma- 
lade or jam, ask for "squish and tosh," and for candy you 
get "sweets." Lemonade is "lemon squash," and sinfully 
weak. The dentist does not fill your tooth, but "stops" it. 
Father is "the Governor," mother is "the Mater," and in- 
stead of saying "Thank you," you say either " 'Kew," or 
"Ta." The street-car is a "tram," and when the conductor 
is angry, he "gets in a wax." The railroad is the "perman- 
ent way," the engineer is the "driver," his fireman is a 
"stoker," and their salary is called "screw." For men's 
gloves and other furnishing goods, you go to a "haber- 
dasher." If you're not looking bright and chipper, people 
call you "seedy," and if you are ill, you're "bad" — some- 
times "very bad." Money is "oof," and divided into "mon- 
keys, ponies, quids, bobs, tanners and stivers." 

These are only a few of the eccentricities of "English as 
she is spoke." There are other examples even more appall- 
ing, and to hear a street altercation between a 'bus-driver 
and a cabby is a liberal education and long to be remem- 
bered, for although largely unintelligible, it affords a won- 
derful insight into the elasticity of the Anglo-Saxon tongue. 
But when you enter the jungle of dialects — Scotch, York- 
shire, Devonshire, Lancashire, cockney and coster, your 
cup will be indeed full and running over. Yet this is the 
nation that ridicules American speech! 

Pursuing the subject into the newspapers, where the evi- 
dence is yet more prolific, a few clippings from the adver- 
tising columns of the London Telegraph may be appropriate 
as a literary chaser. Now what American would under- 
stand this, for instance? 



128 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

FREEHOLD GROUND-RENTS.— £33 per annum on Six semi- 
detached houses, pleasantly situated in growing suburbs; rack rental 
values £32 each; reversion 99 years; price for quick sale only 24 
3^ears purchase, £792. Call, Finsbury Pavement, E. C. 

And hark at this now, as we say in Lunnon. This is the 
polite way of advertising for "Boarders Wanted:" 

A LADY Receives Paying Guests in her comfortable, well- 
appointed residence; bathroom, electric light, and good cuisine; 
terms moderate and inclusive. Apply, Cromwell Road, London, 
S. W. 

Now what would you think of a Cook-General, 22 years 
old, during only 4^ of which she has had a good character ! 
And will you please observe the amount of wages paid to a 
cook in London, £15, $75 a year, or about $6 a month! A 
trip to the Tuffey Avenue Registry might prove a paying 
investment for thousands of distracted American women 
in want of a Cook, whether General or high private. Here 
she is : 

WANT PLACES. 
(Three lines, is, 6d; and 6d per line after.) 
AS Cook-General ; age 22 ; country servant ; 4I years good char- 
acter; wages £15. Mrs. 's Registry, Tuffley Avenue. 

Now here is rather an interesting question : When a man 
is 88 years old, and has been 20 years with one firm of 
lawyers and for many years previous with another firm of 
lawyers, wouldn't it seem that he might be allowed an 
obituary notice that would give him more than two lines out 
of seven, all the rest being free advertising for those two 
firms? 

HOBART. — On the 14th inst., at Harrowgate, in his 88th year, 
Jabez Lawton Hobart, for upwards of 20 years the trusted clerk 
and friend of Messrs. Jiff, Meeson and Wombley, solicitors, Market 
Row, Bolster, and previously for many years clerk to the old 
firm of Jarley, Matthew, Duckett and Sims, solicitors, Wimble- 
ton Terrace, Bromley. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 129 

The following item is probably in the right column, al- 
though at first sight it looks a bit financial. Here's Mr. and 
Mrs. Penny, and by and by there will be little ha' pennies 
and farthings ! 

PENNY-NORWOOD.— On Tuesday at Albert Tabernacle, Bays- 
water, by the Rev. M. Anstruther, Albert M, Penny, son of Major 
George Warburton Penny, D. S. O., to Augusta, third daughter of 
Henry William Chester Norwood, Esq., of Willowdene Terrace, 
Kensington, S. W. 

Were you thinking of ordering any coal? Here are some 
of the pretty names : 

COAL & COKE. Thos. HOCKINS. 
Chief Offices, Euston Road, N. W. 

Household Brights 24s. od. per ton. 

Special Bright House 23s. od. " " 

Kitchen Cobbles i8s. 6d. " " 

Prices of Other Kinds on Application. 
Tel., 765 K. Z. (Esta.b. 1847) Teleg., Fires, London. 

Here is mystery in a birth notice, for apparently the Cap- 
tain's wife had a baby by cable ! 

MERRIVALE.— On the 19th inst., at Bombay, India, the wife 
of Captain H. Warriner Merrivale, R, A., of a daughter. (By 
cable.) 

And as evidence of the constant poverty and distress in 
the "East End" of London, appeals like these are never ab- 
sent from the advertising columns : 

THOUSANDS on VERGE of STARVATION. Rev. J. W. At- 
kinson, Claremont, Cawley Road, London, E. (36 years Latimer 
Church), URGENTLY PLEADS for HELP to PROVIDE FOOD 
and FUEL for HONEST but STARVING EAST LONDON 
FAMILIES. EVERY POUND SENT PROVIDES over 200 hot 
meals free for hunger-bitten little CHILDREN, or 40 sacks of 
COAL and COKE for FIRELESS HOMES. 



130 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

HUNGRY, COLD and HOMELESS.— In pitiable misery from 
streets and prisons, continually imploring the CHURCH ARMY for 
WORK, securing FOOD and Lodging, 13,000 meals and 5,000 beds 
daily provided. Married men with families assisted. Relief by 
work only. Work tickets (2s. per dozen) on application. Lack of 
funds terribly limit us. Donations, old clothes and firewood ur- 
gently needed. Rev. W. Carlisle, Edgeware Road, London, W. 

Work-tickets, however, do not rank very high as popular 
gifts. The proposition figures out something like this : You 
give the Rev. Carlisle two shillings, receiving in return 
twelve work-tickets. Thereafter, when a beggar stops you 
on the street, you hand him a work-ticket, which entitles 
him to walk a mile or two to the woodyard and chop wood 
for an hour or so in return for a bit of bread and coffee. 
His expressions of gratitude will be both fervent and lurid 
— possibly shocking. He wants food, and on the spot, not 
in some distant woodyard after a two hours' wrestle with 
an axe! That is the popular London way of dispensing 
charity, however. The Society gets the money and also the 
wood chopped ready for sale, while the applicant gets the 
long walk and subsequent exercise at the woodpile — always 
provided that he improves this golden opportunity, which 
he seldom does. 

It may not be inappropriate to add the following memo- 
rial notice, which appeared in a local paper in the North 
of England: 

In loving remembrance of John Joseph Hanly, who was drowned 
at Wampole Clevedon, aged 4 years. 

The children of Heaven were robed in white, 
Happy at play in the city so light, 
When Jesus came smiling, and said to His band, 
"There's darling John Joseph; come, give him your hand." 

English newspapers are usually pronounced dull and un- 
interesting, but to me they are always wellsprings of humor 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 131 

and even excitement. Even the columns and pages devoted 
to Parliamentary proceedings have occasional rays of sun- 
shine piercing the murky gloom. Then, too, the deadly 
monotony of the country life is sometimes rudely disturbed 
by a conflagration, and thereupon it is delightful to read be- 
tween the lines and build a mental picture of the scene 
itself. An English fire, or "conflagration," so-called, is an 
entirely different thing from an American one. Fires are 
of far less frequent occurrence in England and compara- 
tively rare outside the cities, where fire protection is usually 
lacking, or limited to volunteer fire companies. When a fire 
once gets started in a country district, the house is usually 
destroyed, frequently for want of water. Referring again 
to the newspaper, here is what generally happens : 

SCOTTISH CASTLE IN FLAMES. 
One of the most disastrous fires that have occurred on Loch Lo- 
mond side took place at Boturick Castle, Bulloch, belonging to Mr. 
R. E. Findlay. The outbreak occurred in the servants' quarters, 
and so quickly did the flames spread that in about four hours the 
servants' quarters and a large part of the castle were destroyed. 
The efforts of the firemen were handicapped by the insufficient 
water-supply, the water being conveyed to the scene in milkcarts. 

It is not difficult to picture that conflagration, although the 
English report is very meagre, not even giving the time of 
day. Any American newspaper would have contained a far 
better and more detailed description, with perhaps an illus- 
tration as well. Imagine the scene — a Scotch castle located 
in the hilly country near Loch Lomond, isolated from the 
village or other sources of help, yet having no water supply 
in case of fire. An entire lake almost at the door, but not 
even a windmill to pump water to the castle. "Water was 
conveyed to the scene in milkcarts." Fancy that ! 

Here is the account of another country fire, which reads 
like a burlesque, but is nevertheless absolutely true. The 



132 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

item is given verbatim and exactly as clipped from the news- 
paper. Lots of things happened this time ! 

HALE NURSERIES ABLAZE. 

Early this morning a serious fire broke out in the nurseries of 
Mr. John Robson, Hale Road, Hale. The flames were first noticed 
issuing from a potting-shed by a night watchman. He gave the 
alarm, and one of the employes at the nursery, after making a futile 
effort to extinguish the fire, set out on his bicycle to summon the 
Fire Department. On the way, his machine broke down and de- 
layed the sounding of the bell. In the meantime the flames 
rapidly involved the structure, which contained large quantities 
of stakes, boxes, charcoal and young vines. 

A slight mishap occurred to the fire-escape on its way to the 
fire-scene. The hind part broke loose and was left in the roadway. 
Later four men were dispatched to remove it, and an accident oc- 
curred to the fore part of the vehicle. The axle snapped and threw 
the firemen into the roadway. One of them was badly injured about 
the head, hand, and legs, and had to be taken home. The potting- 
shed and contents were completely destroyed and the outbreak also 
spread to an adjacent shed. 

The Fire Department should not be permitted to take that 
''fire-escape" along to any more fires. How can a fireman be 
expected to keep his mind on a fire, with a contraption 
like that upsetting and bothering him? First the ''hind 
part" breaks loose and is abandoned, then the "fore part" 
throws the firemen into the roadway. Meanwhile the flames 
"rapidly involve the structure" and it merrily burns up, 
while the fire-escape is playing tag with the firemen down 
the road somewhere. It sounds like a comic opera! Here 
is still another affair: 

TOO LATE FOR THE FIRE. 

As Col. Dixon and his family were at breakfast yesterday at 
Astley Hall, Chelford, an outbreak of fire was discovered under the 
dining-room fireplace. A telegram was despatched to Adderly 
for the brigade, but it got delayed, and the Hall engine after two 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 133 

hours put out the fire. Much amusement was caused by the Alderly 
fire-engine arriving on the scene at 5.30 P. M., or six hours after 
the fire had been extinguished. The message had been unaccount- 
ably delayed, the Hall being only three miles from Alderly. 

In view of the foregoing extracts, who shall hereafter 
pronounce English newspapers dull? Aside from the 
quaintness of the English language as used in England, in 
comparison with "Yankee speech" in America, the news- 
paper facts themselves plainly show the radical difference 
of manners and customs between the two countries. There 
is probably not a newspaper in all England, speaking im- 
personally, that would not feel itself insulted if considered 
"frivolous" or humorous, or anything but serious-minded 
and dignified in all respects. Yet to anyone reading between 
the lines, they are all "comics" alike. 

And parenthetically, if there are any more American mil- 
lionaires who, like Andrew Carnegie, are worried lest they 
be disgraced by dying rich, they need not bother about 
founding libraries, helping universities, or building Peace 
Palaces, for there is a much simpler way of getting rid of 
superfluous wealth. All that the plutocratic American who 
yearns to be poor needs to do is to subscribe to the famous 
and dignified London Times and then proceed to assist all 
the folk (and an uncommonly qiieer crowd they are) who 
advertise their alleged needs in this journars "Agony Col- 
umn." It certainly is unique, this "Agony" or "Personal" 
column, for in no other newspaper in the wide world do 
unblushing grafters so persistently advertise their neces- 
sities, or in some cases their mere whims, in the fond belief 
that utter strangers will be moved by their appeals and pro- 
ceed to "cough up" the necessary wherewithal. 

Here is a highly typical "appeal" which appeared in the 
Times fairly early in the holiday season : 



134 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

VICAR for many years of a large parish and his WIFE, utterly 
unable to aiiford such a luxury, intensely DESIRE A HOLIDAY 
ABROAD, free from work, free from cost, free from other com- 
panionship than their own. Will anyone who appreciates such a 
longing and is rich enough to gratify it, provide means for this 
happiness? Write REVEREND, O 191, Times Office. E. C. 

For sheer nerve it would be hard to beat this and others 
like it among the Times personals, and one naturally won- 
ders if the ingenious folk who insert them ever get any 
replies, to say nothing of discovering philanthropists ready 
to ''part," as they say over the water. Evidently the first 
appeal of the "Vicar of a large parish" was disregarded, 
for a couple of weeks afterward it was repeated with the 
pathetic query, "or does no one care? No reply to former 
advertisment." 

Clergymen are perhaps the most arrant beggars in the 
Times. Here is another of them, a ''country clergyman 
who would be exceedingly grateful for loan of motor-cycle 
with side-car." "Greatest care," he adds, ingratiatingly, 
"A Very Real Kindness. Cannot possibly buy, or would." 
There was no apparent sequel to this advertisement, so we 
shall never know whether the clergyman ever got his motor- 
bike or whether he is still pedalling an ordinary wheel. 

People who have become tired of daily work and yearn 
to be adopted by some affluent person are thicker than black- 
berries in the "Personal" column of the Times. Here are 
the heart-cries of two of them : 

A YOUNG GENTLEMAN, unhappy through family misfortune, 
would be ever grateful if someone really kind and generous would 
take a deep interest in him or even adopt him. Write X. Y. Z., 
Times Office. E. C. 

WILL WEALTHY LADY OR GENTLEMAN ADOPT OR 
INTEREST THEMSELVES IN YOUNG MAN with artistic and 
literary abilities? Genuine. Do please respond. L 261. Times 
Office. E, C. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 135 

People who, like the Vicar mentioned above, desire holi- 
days at someone else's expense, are also plentiful in the 
"Agony" column. A typical "appeal" of this kind reads as 
follows : 

EDUCATED YOUNG MAN, 25, very good companion, has five 
weeks holiday during August and September and would like well- 
to-do person to take him abroad; has great desire for travel, but 
financial and other circumstances will not allow it; photo sent. 
Reply O 675. Times Office. E. C. 

One would greatly like to see a photo of the "educated 
young man" who put that in. A day or two later this ap- 
peared : 

A WIDOWED LADY with TWO SMALL BOYS would be ver> 
GRATEFUL if some KIND-HEARTED PERSON would help her 
to GIVE THEM A MONTH at the SEASIDE from first 
August. R. G. N. B 247. Times Office. E. C. 

People who are worried by debts and desire someone else 
to pay them, likewise advertise in the Times. Here is one 
modest request: 

WILL LARGE-HEARTED LADY or GENTLEMAN assist ad- 
vertiser to CLEAR himself of DEBTS amounting to 100 
pounds Reply O 154. Times Office. E. C. 

Next we have a "loyal churchman, who has given the 
leisure of twenty-five years to church and charitable work 
in London, and who is urgently in need of twenty-five 
pounds through domestic affliction. Could repay with in- 
terest next year." Also "a struggling business man, for six- 
teen years in money-lender's hands," who appeals for "pri- 
vate loan of twenty-five pounds to free him" and another 
signed "Anxious," who wants "temporary help, to save 
myself and family from disaster," and enquires pathetically, 
"Can I find a friend?" 



136 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

There is literally no end to the variety of these appeals in 
the Times. In a good many cases these ''cadgers," as they 
are called, are no doubt successful in discovering Good 
Samaritans, there being many people with money and soft 
hearts, and it is probable that many of them are touched, in 
both senses, by these appeals. But it is very certain that 
the appealers, especially the vicars who advertise for Con- 
tinental holiday trips, and those other diffident little violets 
who desire adoption, constitute a weird company. 

We may draw the line, however, at marriage announce- 
ments. On such occasions everybody is dragged into the 
newspaper, and the more titles there are the merrier and 
more impressive will be the announcement. In this con- 
nection the following extract from Everybody's Magasine 
will be appreciated by every American who knows his Eng- 
lish marriage column : 

In this country {i. e., the United States) when the contracting 
parties to a marriage desire to inform the public of the event, you 
will see inserted in the proper column a little notice like this : 

"BROWN-SMITH.— Married on Saturday, March 4th, at St. 
Josephs Church, Mary Smith to William Brown." 

It is simple and sufficient. Did you ever take up one of the 
English social weeklies and see how a marriage is recorded? It 
will read something like this : 

"MARRIED at Ramsgate Rookery, near Oakley, Stafford, at noon 
on Thursday, 30th instant, by the Reverend Plantagenet Clutterbuck, 
LL. D., R R. S., A. T. S., M. N. O., Q. E. D., uncle to the bride. 
Rector of St. Bartholomew's Church, Elephant's Head, Briary 
Lane, Berkeley, assisted by the Reverend Theophilus Timoleon Tit- 
mouse, J. O. B., R. R., R. X. Y. Z., D. B. E, cousin of the bride- 
groom, Rector of Calvary Church, St. Martin's-in-the-back-cellar, 
Man's Nose, Grantley, Gertrude Maude Beatrice Constance, daugh- 
ter of Grantville Neville Bolingbroke Bopgappers, Esq., L. P., M. 
P. T., S. P. Q., W. P. N., of Bareknees Briary, Cholmondely Chair- 
bones, Somerset, to Harold St. John Evermont Stragsby, K. C. B., 
R. B. A., L. G. J., and T. E. C, late of the Fourteenth Royal Lan- 




The Royal Guards 




English Manor House at Chichester 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 137 

cers, of Pumpernickel Priory and Stonehenge and Stickleneck 
Lodge, St. Christopher's-under-the-hedge, Mumblepeg, Hart- 
ford." 

This extract is doubly interesting, since it's point was entirely 
lost upon one of the readers of the magazine, an Englishman, who 
wrote from the Consulate at Rio Janeiro the following sincere and 
throbbing protest : 

"SIR. As a true Britisher, I desire to protest most emphatically 
against an article appearing in your magazine, showing the differ- 
ence between an American marriage ajinouncement and an English 
one. 

"Unquestionably the person who wrote this article is not well ac- 
quainted with British titles, customs, or names, and I cannot under- 
stand the article in question. I shall not bother you much with de- 
tails, but shall invite your attention to the more glaring errors. 

"I am a Cambridge University man and acquainted with the de- 
grees and titles of England. Will you, therefore, kindly explain 
what the following degrees are, and by what college, or by whom, 
conferred 'A. T. S.,' 'M. N. O.,' 'Q. E. D.,' 'J. O. B.,' 'R. R.,' 'R. 
X. Y. Z.,' etc. I have never heard of them. 

"My father was a Church of England clergyman and I am well 
acquainted with English churches. I defy you to tell me where, in 
all Britain, one can find 'Rector of Calvary Church, St. Martin's- 
in-the-back-cellar.' 

"It seems to me that as a matter of justice to Englishmen, you 
should give my letter the same publicity as the article from which 
I have quoted." 

Well, he appears to have secured the publicity and the 
chances are that he now knows more than his brethren re- 
garding English titles and names of churches. And yet 
England is full of just such solemn and prosaic mortal 
things as that! 

But it is in the daily newspaper reports of proceedings in 
the Law Courts that surprises await the American reader. 
The presiding Justice in an English court of law is looked 
up to as a veritable little tin god by counsel present, and 
his labored attempts at wit are loudly applauded by the 
spectators. Both the main object in the trial of a case, and 



138 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

the dignified conducting of the case itself, seem to be of 
secondary consideration in some London courts, where the 
Justices apparently seek a reputation for wit and repartee 
at the expense of witnesses and counsel. Buffoonery of 
this kind, which is never witnessed in an American court of 
law, is not only greeted with roars of laughter by the au- 
dience, but the roars are conscientiously reproduced in the 
daily newspaper reports ! Such lack of decorum in an 
American court room would result in the instant ejectment 
of every spectator, yet America is supposed to take not only 
her legal procedure but also the expounding and practice 
thereof, from the English law courts. A fair example of 
this behavior, which is alike insulting to litigants and public, 
is found in the following report, taken verbatim from the 
London Telegra^p'h. It will be observed that the legal point 
of contention is apparently entirely lost amid the '^piffling" 
of Justice and counsel and the laughter of toadying spec- 
tators. The counsel in this case are among the most em- 
inent and distinguished in all England. 

SPECIAL LAW REPORTS. 

King's Bench Division. 
Before Mr. Justice Ridley and a Special Jury. 

SALISBURY TRAIN DISASTER. 

The hearing was continued of an action brought by an American 
lady against the London and Southwestern Railway Company. 
Plaintiff was Mrs. Reata Augusta McDonald, whose husband, Mr. 
John Edward McDonald, was killed in the railway disaster at Salis- 
bury in 1906, whilst she was injured. In 1908 plaintiff married Mr. 
Brodt, of New York. She claimed damages for personal injuries, 
and under Lord Campbell's Act, for pecuniary loss sustained 
through the death of her late husband. Sir E. Carson, K. C, Mr. 
Montague Lush, K. C, and Mr. R. F. Colam were for plaintiff, and 
Mr. Rufus Isaacs, K. C, Mr. R. B. D. Ackland, K. C, Mr. J. A. 
Simon, K. C, and Mr. R. B. Murphy were for defendants. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 139 

Mrs. Mills, of Wimbledon, to whose house plaintiff was conveyed 
after the accident, was cross-examined by Mr. Rufus Isaacs with 
regard to Mrs. Brodt's injuries and her present condition. 

Referring to the plaintiff's journey from London to Aix-les- 
Bains for her health, Mr. Isaacs said he did not want to ask any 
indiscreet questions, but perhaps the witness could give him an 
idea of the length of time she took in motoring with plaintiff 
from London to Dover. 

Witness: About four hours. 

His Lordship: How long would it take to Southampton? 

Witness : I think it took about four hours, because we went very 
quietly. We went under the twenty miles. (Laughter.) 

Mr. Isaacs: Oh, I was assuming that, of course. (Laughter.) 

Sir E. Carson: I do not know why you should assume that. 
(Laughter.) 

Witness said that it was a fact that at this moment plaintiff was 
unable to turn her head to the right. When she tried to move it 
she suffered great pain. 

Answering other questions, witness said she and plaintiff motored 
to Ascot. Plaintiff sat on a chair in the paddock all day. Witness 
added: My husband thought that the air would do her good. 

Mr. Isaacs : But the air at Wimbledon, you know, might be better 
than the air at Ascot. (Laughter.) 

His Lordship: Did you go to any other places of entertainment? 

Witness : We might have gone to a theatre in the evening. But 
we never did anything very exciting. (Laughter.) 

Mr. Isaacs: Some people think going to a race meeting is ex- 
citing. (Laughter.) 

Witness: Well, it was not exciting for us, because we sat in the 
paddock all day, and never saw anything. (Laughter.) 

His Lordship: What you go to Ascot for is to sit in the pad- 
dock! 

Mr. Isaacs: You did not go to look at the horses? (Laughter.) 

Witness: We went to look at the dresses. (Renewed laughter.) 

Sir E. Carson: You never went on the stand? I suppose there 
is a stand there? (Laughter.) 

His Lordship (laughing) : Oh! 

Sir E. Carson: I do not really know, my lord. I never went 
there. My experience is confined to flower shows. (Laughter.) 



I40 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

Dr. W. W. Ord, who attended plaintiff on the morning of the 
accident at Salisbury, said she was suffering from very severe 
shock, and almost a collapse. She was bruised from head to foot. 
He had rarely seen such bad bruising. One rib was broken, but 
owing to the pain the examination caused her, he could not tell 
if any more were broken. The two ankles were also strained. 

Dr. W. B. Winton, of Wimbledon, said there must have been 
over a hundred bruises on plaintiff's body. 

Radiographs of the lady's neck, showing the atlas bone, were 
produced. A photograph of an atlas bone taken from a human 
body was also produced. 

His Lordship said the original owner of the bone seemed to have 
met with a violent death. (Laughter.) 

Sir Edward Carson : The bone did not come from France. 
(Laughter.) 

The hearing was adjourned. 

I quite agree that to any American more or less familiar 
with the dignified procedure of American courts, the pos- 
sibility of such farcical procedure as above instanced, seems 
incredible. Ample corroboration, however, may be found 
in the law court reports of almost any issue of the London 
Telegraph, and in nearly every case the report will be punc- 
tuated by "laughter," "renewed laughter," and frequently 
"loud laughter." That reputable citizens, forced to seek 
protection or relief in courts of justice, may be thus publicly 
pilloried in a witness-box as defenceless butts for such inane 
wit and gross discourtesy, is almost beyond belief. Such 
exhibitions not only lower the dignity of the court, which 
is the veritable "majesty of the law," but are in execrable 
bad taste from every point of view and frankly so regarded 
by very many English people. And if this expression of 
opinion is "contempt of court" then I am guilty — only con- 
tempt doesn't half express the opinion ! 

The following anonymous poem is insidiously seductive 
because of its text, or moral, or deduction, whatever you 
choose to term it, and with an additional stanza about Eng- 
lish courts would be still more instructive. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 141 

THE CRY OF A PHILISTINE. 

A painter splashed his canvas full of colors, vaguely blent ; 

He called it Art. 
A player mauled piano keys until his strength was spent, 

And called it Art. 
A poet penned a sonnet weird which not a soul could scan ; 
A fellow wrote a "problem play" which puzzled every man; 
Another one composed a song which gave us all a start ; 

They called it Art. _ 

Crowds thronged the painter's studio, exclaiming, ''What a grand 

Impressionist !" 
More gathered 'round the pianist — cried, as they shook his hand: 

"Impressionist !" 
They said it to the playwright, the composer and the bard, 
And to a lot of other freaks that worked but half as hard 
Creating weird absurdities to give the world a twist — 

"Impressionist!" 

Perhaps I am too dull to grasp their scheme of things ; but still, 

I call it rot! 
Perhaps it is because my mind won't give the proper thrill — 

I call it rot ! 
It's hard to say, but anyhow, I like to use my mind 
To judge of art, and not be told, "THIS is the proper kind." 
I think art should be understood, and so, when it cannot, 

I call it rot ! 

Apropos of weather and the London atmosphere, here is 
something that ought to be interesting to collectors of tarry 
hydrocarbons and sulphuric acid. It is taken from "The 
People of the Abyss," a book descriptive of life in that un- 
der-world of poverty and human wretchedness known as the 
East End, or White-Chapel district, of London : 

"Consider but the one item of smoke. Sir William 
Thistleton Dyer, Curator of Kew Garden, has been study- 
ing smoke deposits on vegetation, and according to his cal- 
culations no less than six tons of solid matter, consisting of 
soot and tarry hydrocarbons, are deposited every week on 



142 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

every quarter of a square mile in and about London. This 
is equivalent to twenty-four tons per week or 1,248 tons per 
year to the square mile. From the cornice below the dome 
of St. Paul's Cathedral was recently taken a solid deposit 
of crystallized sulphate of lime. This deposit had been 
formed by the action of the sulphuric acid in the atmos- 
phere upon the carbonate in the street. And this sulphuric 
acid in the atmosphere is constantly being breathed by the 
London workmen through all the days and nights of their 
lives." 

The fact which is established by the above atmospheric 
conditions is that the London worker is ansemic, physically 
weaker, and never in as healthy condition as the country 
worker who always breathes pure air. Aside from the med- 
ical standpoint, however, there are other reasons to influ- 
ence emigration by London workers. The London Board 
of Trade in its recent report giving the comparative cost 
of living in England and the United States, shows that ar- 
tisans and farmers have considerable advantage over other 
classes in the matter of wages, hours, comforts and oppor- 
tunities of saving money. The investigations were begun 
in 1909 and covered twenty-eight American cities and towns. 
The employments chosen for enquiry were the various 
branches of the building, engineering and printing trades. 
Among the main conclusions is the finding that the food of 
the average English family depending upon the trades 
named would cost about 38 per cent more in the United 
States, and that the rent in America is in proportion of 207 
to 100 in England. In other words the cost of food and 
rent together is 52 per cent greater in the United States 
than in England. The wages in the United States, however, 
are in the ratio of 230 to 100, or more than two and a 
quarter times greater. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 143 

Since there is proof that employment is no more inter- 
mittent in the United States than in England, workers have 
a much greater margin, even when allowance is made for 
higher expenditure. This margin makes possible the com- 
mand of necessities, conveniences, and the minor luxuries 
of life to an extent greater than in England, although the 
effective margin is in itself curtailed by the scale of ex- 
penditure. The report further established the important 
fact that although the habit of spending money is greater 
in America than in England, and although the American is 
naturally more extravagant and wasteful, those who desire 
to exercise strength of will and foresight can save more 
easily in the United States because of the larger income. 

In the matter of hours, the skilled workers in the building 
trades in America have the advantage of about six hours 
weekly compared with the English, and the unskilled have 
the advantage of about 3^ hours. The American com- 
positor works about 48 hours weekly as compared with 52^ 
hours in England. In the engineering trades, on the other 
hand, American hours exceed the English by three hours 
weekly. Such a report is naturally a great argument in 
favor of protection, and the necessity of tariff reform in 
England has long been a thorn in the side of her free-trade 
advisors. 

As a matter of fact, English wages are about one-half 
those paid in American manufactories, while the cost of 
living was about the same. The following comparison was 
made by an owner of manufactories on both sides of the 
ocean. 

Wages in American and English Mills. 
A comparison of wages paid in Yorkshire, England, and 
in Providence, R. I., U. S. A., to operators working upon 
the same machinery and using the same materials : 



144 JOHN BULL, LIAIITED 

Yorkshire. Rhode Island. 

Wool Sorters $7.68 $16.00 

Men Box-Minders 4.20 8.00 

Noble Comb Minders 4.80 9.50 

Can Gill Minders 3.00 7.00 

Drawers 3.00 7.00 

Rovers 2.64 7.00 

Spinning Overlookers 7.20 15.00 

Girl Spinners (according to the 

number of spindles) 2.70 6.12 

Doffers 2.16 4.50 

Girl Twisters 2.64 7.00 

Girl Warpers 3.12 8.00 

Weavers 3.80 1 1.22 

Weaving Overlookers 8.64 16.00 

Joiners 7.64 15.00 

Mechanics 7.20 15.00 

Stokers 6.00 12.00 

''The workmen in our American mills do the same work 
that is done by our English operators, and get more than 
twice the wages that are paid at our plant in Yorkshire. 
Here at our Rhode Island plant they comb, spin and weave 
exactly the same classes of wool, alpaca and mohair, and 
the same qualities of yarn and cloth as do the operatives in 
our English mills. They use identically the same machinery. 
They do precisely the same things. Indeed, many of our 
workmen here were working in the English mills only six 
years ago. The length of the working week is almost the 
same, 56 hours here and 55^ hours over there." 

The speaker was Chairman of a company which began 
business in i860, in Bradford, England, and is to-day the 
President of a company which began building in 1903 the 
huge plant employing fifteen hundred persons, situated at 
Graystone, on the border-line of Providence, R. I. The 
firm is one of the best-known in the world in its line, and 
the American plant was erected on account of the tariff, in 




Beaumaris Castle, Wales 




A Whale in the Upper Thames 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 145 

order to compete for the business of the American market. 
The mills are now the largest of their kind in America, their 
specialties being the finest grades of alpaca and mohair. 
A large number of the employes came to America to work 
in these Graystone mills, following the company across the 
ocean. 

"Now," continued the speaker, 'T believe in tariff reform 
for England. I know that if the English workmen wish to 
improve their condition, receive higher wages, and have 
more constant employment, they should adopt a tariff policy 
for their country. I spend my time alternating between 
England and America, and I became so convinced of the im- 
portance of this whole matter that I caused the above care- 
ful comparison of wages to be made." 

He referred also to the other comparison of vital impor- 
tance in this connection, the cost of living. "I have never," 
he said, "known a workman to return to live in England. 
The company has built a model village about the mills at 
Graystone and the operatives conduct their own co-operative 
store, just as they do in England. The secretaries of these 
stores made computations and I have the comparisons here. 
For instance, a Yorkshire butcher, employed by the Gray- 
stone co-operative, states that the joints are not cut the 
same, but that the prices realized for the whole animal are 
about the same as in England. I have ascertained the 
quantities of everyday necessities consumed by families 
ranging from two to thirteen persons and find that the 
average cost at Graystone is 7^ cents more than in York- 
shire, and that a family of five will have to earn jointly 37^ 
cents more per week to be equal to the families in England." 

Food prices in the co-operative stores managed entirely 
by the workingmen of the textile plants in Yorkshire and 
Rhode Island : 



146 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

Yorkshire. Rhode Island. 

Best flour, per package of 14 lbs... $0.50 $0.54 

Best butter, per pound 34 .32 

Best lard, per pound 18 .15 

Sugar 05i .05^ 

Best cheese, per pound 20 .20 

Currants 10 .10 

Coffee 40 .28 

Ceylon tea 46 .44 

Onions 02^ .05 

Ham 26 .25 

Bacon (Irish) 24 .20 

Apples o7i .08 

Rice o6i .09 

Milk, per quart 06 .06 

Vinegar, per quart 08 .07 

Swiss milk, per tin 10 .07^ 

Bananas, per dozen 16 12! 

It would seem that facts so convincing as these would 
sooner or later bore through the adamantine blocks that do 
duty on the shoulders of the English Liberals who cling so 
blindly to the fallacy of free trade. That the facts have an 
interest for the English working-class, however, is shown 
by the ever-increasing totals of emigration to these more 
generous and comfortable shores. It is only the lack of 
passage-money that keeps the great mass of English work- 
ers at home, where it is not easy to save anything out of 
wages that average only about three dollars a week for 
women and girls, and a dollar a day for men. The whole 
subject is an object lesson, since an equally amazing wage 
comparison may be made in almost every English trade or 
vocation. The wonder of it all, in face of the higher cost 
of living, increased taxation, and depression of business 
generally in England, is that the working population do not 
start for America en masse. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 147 

One thing that impresses a stranger in England is the at- 
tention paid to details in business, and the minute examina- 
tion of all matters arising in the daily routine of great cor- 
porate bodies, such as railways. Returning from a visit to 
York and a ramble through the grand Minster, along the 
Roman Wall, and among the ancient Abbey ruins there, we 
missed a small book, entitled 'Toe's Short Stories." We 
did not miss it until after our arrival home, and at once 
recollected exactly where we left it in the train — rear seat 
of the compartment, right-hand side, between the window 
and the seat-cushion. So I wrote to the Railway Company, 
giving full details, and as the compartment had contained 
no other passengers and the train on arrival had been taken 
directly to the railway yard for the usual inspection and 
cleaning, I knew the Company had found that book right in 
that identical spot, and accordingly I requested its return 
forthwith. Well, that evening we discovered the book at 
home ! Then I was in a quandary. The logical thing, of 
course, was to write the Railway Company and withdraw 
my previous letter. But I had had occasion to blister that 
same Company once before, for mislaying a dress-suit case, 
and although the dress-suit case had been recovered, there 
was a coolness between us and I felt a little delicate about 
exposing my head to their official club after having used a 
sledge-hammer so triumphantly on the Company's. It was 
a serious dilemma. I felt sure that the Railway Company 
was going to have a lot of difficulty in finding any book of 
mine in that particular spot in that particular car, for good 
and sufficient reasons. I knew they would have a search 
made, maybe several of them — under the seat and over it, 
and into every crack in that railway carriage, and that an 
inspector would afterward call upon me with all the offi- 
cial correspondence, from the guard up to the General Su- 
perintendent, and then ask me four hundred very pointed 



148 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

questions and write down all my answers. There would be 
an investigation and a general row, during which they 
would probably recognize me as the sarcastic complainant 
in the previous case, and would then search the whole train 
and also probably along the line clear to York ! In that pre- 
vious case, neither of us had economized either time or con- 
venience in making things warm for the other, and I did 
not desire any repetition of that circus, although I had 
emerged from the fracas with both my suit-case and the 
enemy's scalp. But this was different. The situation was a 
very delicate one, it seemed to me. I wondered if I ought 
to accept a duplicate copy of "Poe's Short Stories," in case 
the guilty and conscience-stricken and abjectly-apologetic 
Railway Company should dissimulate its uncertainty and 
proceed to make restitution on general principles. It was 
manifest that I must allow them to thus appease me, or else 
confess myself a candidate for a guardian or nurse-maid 
while traveling. On the contrary, should the Railway Com- 
pany again act 'igh and 'aughty, I would be in a still worse 
position. How could I do myself justice, and wave the red 
flag of riot and war over the still bandaged head of my 
former adversary, when I had the lost article in my pocket ! 
The more I thought the matter over, the more I perspired, 
and finally I decided to emulate the example of Brer Rab- 
bit — "lay low and say nuffin'." I received no word from 
them during that week, which I regarded as somewhat re- 
markable, but not so remarkable as to necessitate another 
letter from myself, so I waited another week, and yet 
another, without any sign of life from those people. Then 
I began to breathe a little more freely. I had occasion to 
go to that railway station to meet somebody one day, and 
while I was trying to attract as little attention as possible, 
an engine in the station suddenly gave two sharp whistles 
that nearly sent me over the newsstand! Two whistles in 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 149 

a station means that the engineer has found a gold watch or 
something in the engine, and not having missed anything 
myself, I went away. From that day to this, however, I 
have never heard a word from the Railway Company ! Nor 
has the Railway Company heard anything further from me. 
Whether my letter of complaint miscarried, or whether they 
received it and "stood pat," only the Superintendent and the 
angels will ever know. I certainly shall never enquire. It 
was the narrowest escape I ever had, and impressed me 
more than anything Edgar A. Poe ever wrote, even in his 
wildest flights. 

Qti "Whit Week," or Whitsuntide, "all Lancashire and 
the rest of England" quits work and takes a vacation. In 
preparation for this holiday, thousands of the Midland mill- 
workers set aside a portion of their weekly wage in the 
care of "clubs" or "associations," each employe receiving 
back his holiday saving at Whitsuntide and thus ensuring 
his vacation expenses. All Lancashire goes traveling — 
some to Wales, some to London, and thousands swarm to 
Blackpool, the nearest seashore resort. The broad Lan- 
cashire dialect and noisy click-clack of Lancashire "clogs," 
resounds from Regent Street to the Scotch border, whole 
families locking up their homes and "camping out" for the 
week. The great crowds pouring through the Midland 
railway stations necessitate the addition of one hundred 
extra trains a day, and although the crush is something tre- 
mendous, everything is orderly and everybody well-behaved. 

Whit Week, as stated, also serves to give all England an 
unlimited opportunity for cheap travel, special trips at half- 
fare prices being offered by the railway companies to Hol- 
land, Belgium and France, in addition to excursion-trips 
all over England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. And every- 
body goes, leaving business to take care of itself for a week, 
and everybody apparently has no end of a good time. 



150 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

At this holiday season an invitation came for us to go to 
Beaumaris, in Anglesey, North AVales, and we accepted. 
The route lay through wonderful mountain scenery along 
the coast line, with grand views of the Irish Channel nearly 
all the way. 

Wales is rich in mining properties and consonants. The 
names of some localities are as long as a village street, and 
affluent with g's and d's and w's and double U's, They are 
practically unpronounceable except by Welsh people and in- 
clude such gems of thought as Llandudno, Rhyl and 
Pwhyllgux. There is one particular town that has a name 
with nearly half a mile of consonants and only three inches 
of vowels. I have copied this name from the guide-book 
and solemnly swear it to be the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth, and also that I have heard it pro- 
nounced by a Welsh gentleman who still survives. It is 
really a whole sentence in a single word, and signifies some- 
thing or other about "the village by the little house beside 
the mill by the river" and how attractive it all looks. This 
is it : Llanf airpwllgwyngyllgogeryclvhwyrnddrobwll-lland- 
isiliogogogoch ! 

They call that place Llanfair, for short, and nobody has 
ever questioned the sagacity of that idea. Any Welshman 
will take the whole name in one bite, however, and I could 
sit for hours to listen and admire. Welsh sounds exactly 
like a man trying to talk with his false teeth out. I heard 
a sermon preached in the Welsh language during our brief 
visit to Anglesey, but it didn't affect me half as much as 
the name of that town. That name sounded to me like 
home — like an elevated-railway guard calling the One Hun- 
dred and Twenty-fifth Street station in New York, and it 
went straight to my heart. 

If the rest of Wales is anything like Anglesey, it must be 
a little Paradise. I shall never forget that coach-ride over 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 151 

the long Menai Bridge, through the walled roads arched by- 
spreading trees, the rolling meadows of buttercups and 
daisies, the occasional Channel vistas, the changing road 
views as the heavily-laden coach rumbled through narrow 
defiles cut in solid rock or rolled easily along by delightful 
wayside cottages and flower-gardens. 

Beaumaris is an exquisite little corner of Anglesey, half 
country and half seashore — with the blue Channel waves at 
the feet of the quaint old village, and a glorious expanse of 
green hill and meadow behind. The village and all the 
rest is a part of the ancient hereditary Barony and is owned 
by the Lord of the Manor, together with the rest of Angle- 
sey. Close beside the village is the old, ivy-covered ruin of 
Beaumaris Castle, a mediaeval fortress of the thirteenth cen- 
tury — its massive walls and towers, wide moat, and heavy- 
buttressed oaken gate backed by three arched portcullises, 
revealing its former great defensive strength. The entire 
Castle is roofless and open to the sky, the wide walls now 
thatched with grass and vines, but showing still the outlines 
of the interior plan, with dungeons, hidden passages within 
the walls, and the towers and outer walls pierced with slits 
for arrow-shooting. Opening on the inner court is the 
famous ruined banquet-hall where two hundred Welsh 
bards, or singers, were treacherously killed while at din- 
ner, by one of the early Barons and his retainers. 

The peace of centuries overspreads this historic old ruin. 
Its grass-grown moat is used as a playground, while the 
great central court, spangled with flowers, is now a velvet 
lawn of green and sunshine where tennis-balls and youth- 
ful laughter replace the strife and bloodshed of bygone cen- 
turies. Daisies and clover-blossoms whisper back and forth 
the stories and Castle legends told them by the old ruined 
walls, or brought by the gossipping rooks that nest in the 
towers and promenade the moat. 



152 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

England is filled with such historic relics, dating back to 
the Roman occupation and Lord knows when. Even now, 
at Chester, York, and many other places, stone coffins and 
cooking utensils are frequently unearthed, and the once- 
encircling Roman Wall, or fortification, is still in evidence, 
with a pretty footpath all along the top. These monuments 
of an almost forgotten people offer far more food for re- 
flection when seen face to face than when pictured in story. 
The real thing is always more convincing, to others besides 
Missourians. In the British Museum is a "prehistoric man," 
so called because antiquarians locate him away back with 
the ichthyosaurus and other freaks before the flood, or just 
after it, or — anyhow, there he is. He has his stone coffin 
along with him, and reposes inside curled up like a pretzel, 
exposed to the sport or curious regard of mankind of to-day. 
That twisted and fossilized figure is the world's original 
''oldest inhabitant," and if you are fond of quiet reflection 
and the accompanying reminiscent thrill, you have a gold- 
mine in that glass case. As evidence of the seriousness of 
the British intellect, it may be added that when a London 
newspaper gravely announced on April first that the "pre- 
historic man" was showing signs of returning animation, 
the British Museum attendants not only received an extra 
large number of curious visitors that day, but dropped into 
the "mummy room" for an occasional peep themselves ! 

Referring again to York and Chester, the quaintest of 
old English cities — each a beauty-spot of Britain, each diffi- 
cult of description — for one's interest becomes so divided by 
the range of subjects and so absorbed by each in turn that 
an adequate comprehension of all is well-nigh impossible. 
The history of York and the story of its wars and conquest, 
from Hannibal to Cromwell, is the history of both, and the 
dry statistics and perfunctory descriptions of Minster and 
Cathedral, Roman Walls, and ancient buildings, are all to 




Entrance to Old Abbey at Chester 




'Old Ship Inn," near Manchester 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 153 

be found in Baedeker and a hundred other books dear to 
the librarian and tourist. The most charming way to see 
such dehghtful places is to leave Baedeker at home, and 
wander about as we did, with friends who omitted all the 
dry statistics and related only what was really interesting, 
telling the story of each historic object while we stopped 
to gaze upon it. We learned that the Cathedral was one of 
the largest and grandest in England, that it dated from 
about one thousand and something, and had the finest or- 
iginal stained glass in the kingdom — further, that the Oc- 
tagonal Chapter House was the most beautiful in Britain. 
We saw in the Crypt, built in the twelfth century, a piece 
of masonry said to be of the Saxon era, but I was none the 
wiser for that, for any old rock looks like any other old 
rock to me. There was an ancient Guild House down the 
street that was interesting — it resembled a small chapel, 
and I was very glad to get outside again, for it was ap- 
parently ready to tumble down at any minute. We came 
out on tiptoe. It was not the Cathedral, or "York Minster," 
as it is called, that most interested us, however. I have 
seen Cathedrals and great churches all over Europe until I 
am tired of them from brain to feet. They all look alike, 
have the same odor of sanctity, and seem to wear the same 
universal scowl for strangers. 

What most impresses one in York is the old Roman flavor 
that pervades everything. We stood on the Roman wall 
that encloses the ancient portion of the town, and dreamed 
things as they were nine hundred years ago — the Roman 
sentinel, kindred to the one who stood steadfast at his post 
in the fiery rain at Pompeii, standing on guard here at the 
old postern water-gate — the ancient arched and sculptured 
city gates under which have passed in and out, Norman, 
Saxon, Roman, Briton, and Cork Tourists — the ruined Ab- 
bey, roofless, with only the high-arched windows and one 



154 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

side-wall remaining after a thousand years, the same little 
river flowing at its feet where monks in olden days fished 
for their Friday dinner — the Hospitium, where strangers 
calling at the Abbey were lodged, now a museum of relics 
and curiosities unearthed roundabout. In those early days 
there was no Patent Office, and in that ancient museum we 
saw hair-pins, scarf-pins, fancy tableware, rings, irridescent- 
glass ornaments, and all kinds of household adornments, 
exactly like those in use to-day, and in many instances 
duplicated in our own Patent Office as models upon which 
''patents" have been issued to enterprising non-inventive 
Anglo-Saxons. The dear old safety-pin, friend of our 
childhood and ever useful, may be found on exhibition in 
every museum in Europe, some of them cut out of wood 
and used in Egypt three thousand years ago, along with the 
hair-pins found in mummy cases — and one day an Anglo- 
Saxon smarty patented the safety-pin idea and made a for- 
tune ! We saw a monk in the Museum, or rather what re- 
mains of him, cowled and with the selfsame rope around his 
waist that held his gown centuries ago. Most visitors glance 
at it, pass on, and become interested in the collection of 
stone coffins dug up in the Abbey grounds, but I could see 
that monk passing across the lawn and down to the river- 
bank with his fish-pole, and by and by his cowled figure 
going through the ruined entrance to the Abbey, and later 
mingling with his brown-robed brethren in the chapel — all 
nine hundred years ago ! 

Sometimes I wish that I might live a thousand years and 
go about the earth revisiting old scenes. With my inborn 
capacity for enjoying everything from an autumn leaf to 
an insurrection, such a life would certainly be varied and 
never dull. In some respects it would be charming — sad in 
others. I have in my little day wandered over a consider- 
able part of both continents, and find it always pleasant to 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 155 

revisit scenes and people, however widely scattered from 
West to East. But a thousand years ! What changes to 
observe each century — what new friendships to make, and 
old friends to mourn — what passings-on of all things tem- 
poral ! And curious it is how gradually and imperceptibly, 
yet surely, the haunts and abodes of men are finally builded 
on by succeeding generations and become in turn obliterated 
by Time and the earthy deposit of Time. We do not realize 
that what is on the surface of our earth to-day will be 
largely tumbled down and built upon a thousand years 
hence. You can dig anywhere in Europe almost and dis- 
cover buried and forgotten things of long ago, from a 
button to a temple. Part of a Roman Wall has recently 
been unearthed near London, Roman coins and the remains 
of Roman camps, pavements, goblets, and armor are con- 
stantly being turned up by the plough or spade all over Eng- 
land — perhaps as reminders "lest we forget" that for five 
hundred years England labored under the yoke and lash 
of her Roman conqueror. Even while we were in York 
they were resurrecting a huge Roman ruin of a bath-house, 
chariot factory, or department store — nobody knew what it 
was or appeared to care. Some Yorkshireman happened to 
be digging a well and found a cupola ! After relocating his 
well, he continued operations, and some day he will have 
a Roman bath, or whatever it turns out to be, and then the 
English Government will double his taxes and eventually 
acquire the excavation. One of our York friends who was 
having a cellar made for a little summer-house in his gar- 
den, surprised a former Roman citizen reposing there in a 
stone coffin. The coffin is now in the museum, inscribed 
not with the name of its former occupant, but with that of 
the finder! The bones went elsewhere. Apparently the 
Romans wore out their welcome in York. 



156 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

There is also the old Castle, which I am not going to de- 
scribe — part of it is only a prison now — but imagine going 
through that musty old fortress, one of the oldest in Eng- 
land, absorbing ancient lore and getting mentally covered 
with the hoary dust of antiquity, so to speak — and then 
emerging into the sunshine and being shown "the finest 
modern railway station in Europe!" York has both the 
oldest and newest of attractions — one might stay there for 
many and many a day, and find never a dull one. 

Chester, or "Old Chester," as it is reverently called, also 
imprints its lasting impression on the memory of pilgrims 
to its shrine. Nestled within the arm of the slow-winding 
river Dee, and surrounded by the ever-charming rolling 
country of Cheshire, its heart enclosed by the still-enduring 
Roman wall, and its grand old Cathedral looming up amid 
other buildings old and new — Chester is all that could be 
desired. Once within its charmed circle, one feels the deep 
content that betokens earthly peace and good will. It was 
a fortified Roman town in the first century, and here one 
realizes the antiquity of Britain. 

Chester is dominated, not by its majestic Cathedral, its 
quaint "Rows," its past glories and modern cheese, but by 
its famed tutelary deity, the "Cheshire cat." This strangely- 
shaped and grotesque effigy of a feline pet grins its distorted 
greeting at you from every shop-window, apparently re- 
joicing in its hideous deformity and the red and yellow 
spots. You will find stray specimens of these china mon- 
strosities all over England, but Chester is the family head- 
centre, the "old homestead" of the tribe. That cheerful, 
emblematic grin meets and welcomes you at every turn, and 
such is its insinuating, persuasive witchery that even while 
you berate yourself for a fool and the descendant of fools, 
you cannot resist an idiotic grin in return. The Cheshire 
cat is the living exemplification of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 157 

"Laugh and the world laughs with you." Its complacent 
smile has never been paralleled except by the pleased ex- 
pression of a certain historic tiger returning from its walk 
with a too-confiding young lady. 

A beautiful view of Chester and its surroundings may 
be had from the promenade along the top of the Roman 
wall, the most ancient in England. A parapet extends along 
each side, broken by occasional old watch-towers, from 
one of which King Charles saw his army defeated on 
Rowton Moor, in 1645. The wall is pierced by antique 
*'city gates," with coats of arms still blazoned above the 
arches. Near the main entrance and just within the wall 
itself stands the Cathedral, famous among the famous 
Cathedrals of England. We wandered through its dark- 
ened interior, the golden sunshine filtering through the 
great stained windows, and rested for a little in the cool 
shadow of the central nave to admire the rich reredos and 
altar, carven choir-stalls, and grandly-imposing dome. Then 
with a shilling we corrupted an attendant, who led the way ^ 
to a little door opening into the old burial-ground outside, 
where nobody is allowed to enter except Royalty, church 
members, and us. We are usually able to secure entrance^ 
into everything, everywhere, and always, even though it is 
contrary to orders, against all tradition, and may mean 
death to the official in charge. Our ''open sesame" is a 
silver key that unlocks every door, the size of the key vary- ^^ 
ing with the size of the door, and we are particular to 
always have this key with us when we go a-wandering. The 
English sightseer seldom spends an extra penny, and con- 
sequently sees only the regulation free programme, while 
a nimble little silver six-pence or shilling will open locks 
and doors leading into all sorts of secret places full of won- 
derfully interesting historic treasures always kept sacred 
from the public view. 



# 



158 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

' I remember on one occasion when visiting Windsor Castle, 
we were admitted to St. George's Chapel after the regular 
hour for closing, due solely to the hypnotic effect produced 
by a half-crown piece, and how later the attendant nearly 
wept because he was helpless to acquire a beautiful gold 
sovereign offered him for a look inside the great marble 
sarcophagus of the Duke of Clarence. "Don't you want it ?" 
"Want it? — my Gawd, yes!" said the man. "Well, open 
it, then," said John, pointing to the sarcophagus. "Gawd 
save us, I cawnt hopen it, the top weighs more than a ton, 
sir," almost blubbered the excited attendant. John gave him 
half a sovereign, to save his tottering reason, and we shall 
remember that sarcophagus as one of the very few places 
in England that we failed to unlock. 

Chester is famous for its ancient "Rows" (pronounced 
rose), a sort of second-story sidewalk, with shops and 
house-entrances like those in the street below. They re- 
semble a long interior balcony, with railing, affording a 
quiet and shady promenade, with stairways to the street at 
either end. The idea would seemingly be worth copying 
for relieving the crush on modern sidewalks. It is said that 
these "Rows," or second-story sidewalks, were once on a 
level with the streets of the old walled town — a statement 
which appears at first sight more or less doubtful, yet per- 
haps it may be true. It gives one a sort of apologetic feeling 
to be promenading in front of what would ordinarily be 
somebody else's private apartments, but we got over that. 

The ideal way of seeing England, or for that matter any 
other place, would be to tour the country in an automobile, 
with a careful and competent chauffeur, who would also act 
as guide. By this means, all railway travel and arbitrary 
hours of arrival and departure are eliminated, and one can 
ride along slowly or stop whenever desired, to view the 
charming landscape. There are plenty of pretty wayside 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 159 

inns from which to choose resting-places at night, and one 
enjoys perfect freedom from time-tables, stuffy railway 
trains, station conveyances, and a hundred other annoy- 
ances of ordinary travel. England is fairest outside her 
cities; the countryside is delightful from April to October, 
and an automobile trip through Devon, Cheshire and Lan- 
cashire into Scotland, along the lake and mountain route 
from Glasgow to Edinborough, thence down the east coast 
to the sea-side resorts along the "English Riviera," or 
South Coast, Brighton, Eastbourne, Bournemouth, and the 
like, is an ideal trip never to be forgotten. There is a world 
that is entirely different from the world seen by the railway 
traveler, full of scenes and pleasures absolutely new and 
delightful to every sense — a world that is open wide to him 
who journeys slowly and with eyes that see, whether the 
journey be by rail or motor-car. To the traveler who races 
over a prescribed route, in a prescribed and limited time, 
a slave to his itinerary of travel and with eyes for only what 
the guide-books recommend, the real joys of foreign travel 
are unknown. He sees but little, remembers less, and the 
principal benefit derived from such a trip is enjoyed by the 
recipients of his foolish and wide-flung travel expenses. 

The mill-towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire are all alike 
in essential respects, being prosaic, commercial and dull in 
comparison with the quaintness of York and other show- 
places. Weaving-mills and factories are everywhere, their 
countless "smoke-stacks" rolling out black clouds of sooty 
soft-coal smoke both night and day, befouling the landscape 
and soiling everything it touches. The sun shines brightly 
in the Midlands, however, and one doesn't notice the dirt 
till he looks at his cuffs ! 

The average wage of an adult mill-worker is sixteen 
shillings, or $4.00, per week. Children of all ages and 
sizes are also employed, receiving an average of four shil- 



i6o JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

lings, or $i.oo, per week. The working hours are from 7 
A. M. to 7 P. M., with an hour for dinner. At 7 P. M. the 
day-shift leaves the mill and the night-shift takes the va- 
cated places. The mills grind night and day, grinding 
human beings ! The day-shift is made up largely of women 
and girls, the night-shift of men; husband and wife meet 
at the gates of the mill, he entering, she leaving, or vice 
versa, seeing each other only in that brief moment until 
Sunday comes. The mills shut down on Sunday, but they 
keep the fires going! 

Bradford is situated on one side of a wide, deep ravine, 
the ridge opposite being open country and marked out in 
squares or rectangles by innumerable hedge-rows, the cus- 
tomary English boundary-lines of farms. The view across 
the valley is very fine — whenever the smoking forest of 
intervening "chimney-stacks" permits. 

Within the silk-mills is the eternal crashing back and 
forth of countless shuttles endlessly weaving, weaving the 
story of human hardship and cruel poverty into rich fabrics, 
amid a deafening and exasperating din. Here are employed 
thousands of anaemic-looking workers, whose lives run lit- 
erally in one straight groove from day to day and year to 
year, with little or no variation from the daily path trav- 
eled from home to mill and back again. Tons of silk 
cocoons are pulped in these mills, then spun and woven into 
all manner of silk goods. The largest mill is near the 
pretty Park, and boasts a "chimney-stack" taller and of 
greater girth than any in all England. It certainly is a 
monster, and from its commanding situation on high 
ground overlooks all the country roundabout. A coach 
and four horses can be driven round the top, they say, but 
the experiment has never been tried. On the day when 
the great chimney was ''opened," christened, or dedicated, a 
dinner-party was held at the top. A temporary railing was 




King Charles Tower on the Roman Wall, 
Old Chester 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED i6i 

built around the outer edge, and the guests were carried up 
on a small *'lift," or elevator, inside the chimney. The peo- 
ple of Bradford talk about that dinner yet, and probably 
always will. The stranger, on arrival, is asked : "Hast seen 
owt (aught) of Lister's chimbley-stack ? Noa? Thow't 
not — weel, zur, a cooch and voor 'orses can be a-druvven 
round aboot the top, zur, an' when chimbley war oopened" — 
and so on. They tell it to you. We heard it every day, 
until I finally got it so pat that I told it to Bradford people 
myself, but always locating the chimney in Lancashire! 
Yorkshire is jealous of Lancashire, and Lancashire has no 
special use for Yorkshire, so the chimney was always good 
for a free lesson in dialect. Yorkshire dialect is always 
richer and broader when the speaker is excited. The bare 
idea of that Yorkshire prize "stack" being in Lancashire 
was usually sufficient to transform a quiet Bradford citizen 
into a violent lunatic. It was very odd. 

The beauties and capabilities of the real Yorkshire dialect 
are best heard when the mill-shifts are changing and the 
adjacent streets and sidewalks are thronged with the hur- 
rying workers. The Babel of jargon is something tremen- 
dous. Lancashire dialect is said to exceed the Yorkshire 
in broadness and picturesque variety, but I could see no 
choice myself. Either one can be cut with a knife and 
make an Irish "brogue" resemble thirty centimes. 

In traveling across England by rail, the mill-towns are 
conspicuous by the smoke which obscures the sky above 
and around them. Sheffield and Birmingham can be recog- 
nized miles away by their canopies of smoky cloud. We 
passed through Sheffield in a sort of thick fog, and as the 
train continued its route across a valley and along the oppo- 
site side, we looked back at the city five miles away and 
saw only a smudge of smoke like a great cloud. We were 
then in brilliant sunshine and among the green fields and 



i62 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

harvests. Little wonder that Horace Walpole described 
Sheffield as "one of the foulest towns in England, in the 
most charming situation." At night the fires of the great 
steel rolling-mills there redden the sky like the glare of a 
burning city, and the scene inside a mill is like a peep into 
the Inferno of Dante, with the crimson glow and half-naked 
men, and roaring flames of the wide-open furnaces. But 
even with such an object-lesson always before them, it is 
not recorded that the Sheffield population is especially in- 
terested in theological subjects. 

I remember one especially dull morning while returning 
to New York on a big White Star liner, when every pas- 
senger seemed to be buried in a book and steamer-chair, 
or prowling about the deck in a fit of the dumps, a mental 
condition which is charmingly expressed in the English ver- 
nacular as "got the hump." Maybe it was due to the 
weather, possibly to the long side-roll of the ship, or per- 
haps just a plain everyday coincidence. 

I stood at the rail of the promenade deck beside the Only 
Girl, rejoicing in the sweep of ocean-view, the glorious 
breeze, and joyousness of life itself. As we watched the 
great vessel plough its giant path through the white surge 
that spread away each side of the bow, and the millions of 
bubbles racing past to the foam-flecked wake behind, I 
took a handful of silver coins from my pocket, and said: 

"We are like passengers in a balloon sailing over the 
mountains and valleys of the ocean-bed. Away down there 
below us in those blue depths are Alpine ranges and mighty 
prairies, towering peaks and smooth table-lands, extending 
for hundreds of miles in every direction, and were this 
great ocean to vanish and we remain floating here above it 
all, we could plainly see all these mountains and valleys 
so far beneath us." 

"How far?" inquired this practical maid. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 163 

"Well, the depth of the ocean varies according to the 
coin formation of its bed, the greatest depth being about 
three miles. In the ship's library, my dear, you will find 
books describing the ocean and its hidden secrets, and also 
maps showing the charted heights and hollows of the sub- 
marine bed itself. It is very interesting. 

"For instance," I continued, "we are now about a thou- 
sand miles from the English coast, almost in mid-Atlantic. 
Directly under us at this moment, according to the library 
charts, is a valley extending some seventy miles from one 
side to the other, enclosed by lofty mountains and gradually 
shelving like the interior of a wine-glass to a base only 
about ten miles in diameter. The bottom is said to be of 
hard white sand, and whatever wrecked ships have gone 
down into this valley gradually shift to this common centre 
and find a final resting-place upon this white sand. Now, 
if we were in a balloon instead of a ship, you could look 
down and see what is there." 

The Only Girl captured a wind-blown tress and fastened 
it beneath her steamer-cap. "How awfully interesting that 
is. I should so love to see it." 

"Well, we can't very well do that, but we can send a 
substitute." 

From the handful of mixed English and American sil- 
ver coins I selected a bright new shilling-piece, her eyes 
sparkling meanwhile with suppressed curiosity, while a con- 
valescent invalid in a nearby steamer-chair regarded us 
with that scowling disfavor commonly extended by the 
breed toward passengers with well-behaved stomachs. 

I held the shilling-piece in my hand, and said: 

"Now, dear, this little shilling is going to see something 
that no human eye has ever seen or ever will see. I am 
going* to throw it overboard and it will sink lower and 
lower, down, down through the blue ocean to the sandy 



i64 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

bed far below, and it will stay there forever and ever, 
among the shattered wrecks and skeletons and perhaps 
treasure, and all sorts of queer things. It is sure going to 
see things, unless some big fish gobbles it en route to 
squander in some lobster palace. Now, if this shilling could 
only come back and tell us what it has seen down there 
under the blue water, it would be a story worth hearing, 
wouldn't it? Well, here it goes; say good-bye!" 

The Only Girl looked very intently at the little mes- 
senger, and said: 

"Now, don't you stop to talk on the way with any strange 
fish; you just hustle down there and get busy with those 
wrecks and things. Then cable us at Daddy's expense." 

I threw the shilling far out from where we stood, into a 
dark patch of blue water free from foam and bubbles, and 
as the liner forged its way past we saw the silver gleam 
and twinkle as it sank down into the depths, turning in 
the dark water as if to flash back an eternal farewell to 
sunshine and the turquoise sky. 

The incident left a deep impression on the mind of the 
Only Girl, and will always associate itself with a mental 
photograph of that ocean-valley and its silent surroundings. 
Frequently during the rest of the voyage she would emerge 
from a brown study or interrupt some abstruse remarks 
of mine with the musing interrogation, "I wonder where 
that shilling is now, Daddy," and so also during the years 
that have since elapsed the fate-question of that little 
messenger has frequently been in our minds. "Full many 
a gem of purest ray serene. The dark unfathomed caves 
of ocean bear," but not one of them has such a healthy and 
absorbing interest to me as that little Queen's shilling. I 
don't think I ever spent a shilling to such good advantage. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 165 

English railway men are proud of the speed records 
made on their lines. They admit that they have no long- 
distance runs like those of the New York-Chicago limited 
trains of the Pennsylvania or New York Central, but they 
claim to operate a greater number of fast trains at a greater 
speed than the American railroads. This high speed, how- 
ever, is for only a comparatively short run, and cannot be 
compared with the long mile-a-minute runs extending 
nearly half-way across the American continent and made 
by fast passenger specials. It was old Commodore Van- 
derbilt who once remarked that fast train service in Eng- 
land was like a hundred-yard race — "they couldn't keep it 
up long, for fear of running off the island." 

The fastest non-stop run in England is between Darling- 
ton and York. The Northeastern Railway does this forty- 
four-and-one-half-mile run at a speed of a little over sixty- 
one miles an hour. 

The express trains of the Great Central Railway cover 
the distance of twenty-two and one-half miles between 
Leicester and Nottingham at the rate of a little over sixty- 
one miles an hour. The next best run is the Caledonian 
Railway's express, which covers the thirty-two and one- 
half miles between Forfar and Perth at over sixty miles 
an hour. 

The Great Western Railway has some remarkably fast 
trains. The non-stop express runs between London and 
Bristol, 118^ miles, at a speed of fifty-nine miles an hour. 
The Great Western also runs non-stop expresses between 
London and Plymouth, 225 miles, at a speed of fifty-five 
miles an hour. Americans landing at Plymouth are fa- 
miliar with the Great Western's boat-specials that take 
them from Plymouth to London. They often cover level 
stretches at a speed of seventy-five miles an hour. From 
Plymouth to Exeter the line is hilly, which reduces the 
speed. 



i66 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

The French railway men also have some fast expresses to 
boast about. The Northern of France covers the run from 
Paris to Arras daily, 120 miles, in 117 minutes. Its Paris- 
Busigny expresses do the 112^ miles in 112 minutes. Its 
Paris-St. Quentin expresses do the 95^ miles in 95 min- 
utes, and its Paris-Longeau expresses do the 78^ miles 
in y^ minutes. 

The French railways have recently speeded up their 
Paris-Berlin expresses. The morning train from Paris to 
the frontier is timed as follows: Paris-St. Quentin, 95/4 
miles in 93 minutes ; St. Quentin-Erquelines, 53^ miles 
in 51 minutes, or at the rate of 62.9 miles an hour. The 
French railway men think this is ''going some." 

There are a dozen trains from London to Birmingham, 
no miles, that cover the distance in 120 minutes to a tick. 
From London to Brighton, the popular seaside resort, is 
50^ miles, and a dozen expresses a day do the distance in 
just 50 minutes. 

The difference between the English railway compart- 
ment-coach and the American railway car is quite as 
marked as the difference between the locomotive engines. 
Corridor cars, a compromise between the two types of pas- 
senger cars, are a great improvement over the old-style 
compartment car, and far safer for ladies obliged to travel 
alone. 

"God bless your Honor," said the old Irish janitor of 
an office-building in Manchester, to whom I had wished a 
"Merry St. Patrick's Day" as I stepped from the "lift" on 
the upper floor. " 'Tis kind av ye, sorr — sure, today is the 
Siventeenth and 'tis an American ye are, praise God, and 
not English. Strange things do be happening nowadays, 
sorr; d'ye mind the bit av green in me coat today? Sure, 
'tis only of late years that a man could do that here and 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 167 

openly, yet now, sorr, the wearin' av the green is not only 
allowed but raley encouraged be the English, God forgive 
thim ! Faith, 'tis but right, and why ? Irish Ginerals have 
led the English throops to victory along wid Irish soldiers 
too often av late years for England to openly ignore Ireland 
longer, since 'tis the English flag gets all the glory and 
honor, sorr. And sure, the Queen sinds the Irish Guards 
great boxes av shamrocks on St. Patrick's Day, and the 
King be graciously plazed to allow ut be worn on the British 
uniform for that wan day only, Bedad, in other days and 
not so long ago ayther, the English were hangin' people in 
Ireland for wearin' the green little shamrock, but that is all 
ended foriver, praise God, and only the red shame to Eng- 
land remains." 

True words those. It was worth while to hear the old 
man talk of Ireland's partial emancipation and catch his 
appreciative laugh when I explained how St. Patrick was 
born at midnight on March 8th, and because those present 
were unable to decide whether he arrived late on the 8th 
or early on the 9th, they added the two dates and called it 
the 17th! The celebration of St. Patrick's natal day is not, 
however, carried to such an extreme in London as in New 
York — they do not hoist the green flag on Buckingham 
Palace or the Houses of Parliament yet ; but even that may 
come in time. The British lion is still sensitive mentally 
and physically from the trouncing received in the Trans- 
vaal and Soudan, from which he was rescued by Roberts 
and Kitchener, Irish both, and what with frequent tail- 
twistings by Irish members of Parliament, and the awful 
visitations of the Suffragettes, Sir Leo can hardly be blamed 
for purchasing peace at any price. Much of this nature 
and more to the same effect did the old veteran and I dis- 
course about, while the "lift" waited idly near us on the 
upper floor with wildly-ringing bell, and men of England 



i68 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

filled the entrance-hall downstairs with wrath and lamenta- 
tion. "But phwy prolong the discussin','' as Tim said 
when he finally started the car downward. "Sure, 'tis all 
wan — Here's to thim that wish us well, And thim that don't 
may g-g — God change their hearts, sor!" With which bit 
of Irish philosophy the old man dropped down to the raging 
tenants marooned on the ground floor below. 

Near Manchester lived a man known as "Ducky," who 
had spent about ten years of his life in raising chickens, 
ducks and geese. He knew more about the habits and 
eccentricities of that kind of fowl than it seemed possible 
for any man to retain in his mental system without strain- 
ing it wide open. As an authority on feathers and cackle 
he stood ace-high, his judgment being regarded as Gospel 
truth by all the adjacent neighborhood. One day a well- 
dressed stranger carrying a satchel walked into the little 
public-house where "Ducky" was holding forth on the high 
price of eggs as contrasted with the indifferent business 
ambition displayed by the local poultry. The stranger 
ordered a drink and started conversation. 

"I have something here," he said, extracting a live goose 
from the satchel, "which I consider one of the marvels of 
the age, as illustrating what education will do for even a 
poor dumb creature like this. I am told that you under- 
stand something about geese, and you are therefore prob- 
ably aware of the mental disadvantages under which they 
labor, having little or no brain power or mental concentra- 
tion, and being easily flustered or confused. When, there- 
fore, such an absolutely irresponsible proposition develops 
a high intellectual capacity for absorbing, retaining and ap- 
plying knowledge imparted to it from a loftier intellectual 
plane, that object becomes a marvelous exception to the 
general rule, and as such, a miraculous evidence of the 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 169 

exalting power of higher education. For instance, this is 
Muriel, the dancing goose." 

"Garn," said an onlooker. ''Chuck it!" The audience 
roared with appreciative interest. 

"I sye, old chap," remarked "Ducky," stroking the back 
of Muriel, then standing on the floor and regarding the 
company bashfully, "wot d'ye mean aboot this burrd 
a-darncing? Geese don't becoom darncers, y'know." 

"Not all geese, certainly," the stranger continued, "but 
Muriel, this snow-white wonder, does actually dance. She 
will do a sailor's hornpipe, a whirlwind dance, the coochee- 
coochee, or a pigeon-wing, if preferred. She has had the 
benefit of a musical education as well, and is gifted with 
an excellent ear for correct time." 

" 'Ear, 'ear !" applauded the crowd. "Give us a 'ornpipe, 
missis." 

By this time "Ducky" was greatly interested. In all 
the years of his intimate experience with geese he had 
never heard of one being so intelligent and graceful as to 
be capable of executing a dance. But he was willing to be 
shown, and the stranger was willing to convince him. 

"Muriel," said he, "will take pleasure in dancing for 
you, and then if you are satisfied you should take her home 
to entertain your friends. Nothing would force me to part 
with her, except actual need of money, nor would I ever 
do so unless I was sure that she would have a good home 
and a kind master." 

The stranger took from the satchel a square piece of tin 
and placed it on the floor. Muriel backed away a few steps 
rather shyly, but was lifted up by the stranger and placed 
upon the tin, with the admonition : 

"Now, Muriel, kindly oblige us with a dance." 

Sure enough, the goose began to kick and hop about in a 
grotesque sort of two-step, varied with an occasional flop 



170 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

into the air, resuming its gyrations when its feet returned 
to the tin square. The spectators, at first hushed and awe- 
struck, applauded uproariously and shouted encouragement. 

**Sling yer 'ook, Dysy!" "Go it, missis!" "Blyme, wot 
a lark!" " 'Appy days, old girl!" 

Muriel began to show signs of extreme disfavor and the 
stranger lifted her up, replacing the tin square in the 
satchel. 

The dance was not so very graceful, "Ducky" admitted, 
but then one couldn't expect too much from a goose. In 
the main it was very satisfactory, however, and he was 
pleased and considerably impressed. After a brief private 
conversation with the stranger in a corner, during which 
"Ducky" parted with the amount required for Muriel, he 
bade the stranger good-bye and took the goose home. 

On arriving there he placed Muriel once more on the tin 
square, where she danced as vigorously as before, to the 
unbounded joy and admiration of a fresh lot of spectators. 
Then in some way, right in the middle of a startling High- 
lang Fling, the goose managed to get off the tin. Imme- 
diately the dancing stopped. Muriel, with a little shake of 
her ruffled plumage, just walked off as a modest little goose 
should. 

Then "Ducky" started to investigate. Picking up the 
bird, he found attached to each foot a fine wire, which ran 
down each leg. The wire was continued under the wing, 
where it connected with a tiny electric battery, cleverly con- 
cealed. When the bird was placed on the tin, a circuit was 
formed, causing it to kick and stamp its feet! The mys- 
terious source of Muriel's higher education was revealed. 
"Ducky" had also learned a thing or two himself. 

The Midland country lying between London and the 
Scottish border was the scene of much religious strife in 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 171 

the strenuous days when Oliver Cromwell and his "Iron- 
sides" overran England, shooting, hanging and maiming 
that unfortunate portion of the population who differed in 
religious creed. Spreading the gospel by cropping off the 
ears and slitting the noses of tardy converts is a method 
only temporarily convincing. Many an old and battered 
farm-house still attests the "Protector's" malign presence, 
where, after hanging or cropping the unfortunate owner, 
the departing soldiers put the torch to the old stone-walled 
buildings. At Drogheda, Ireland, while suppressing a re- 
bellion in that unhappy isle against the English, over one 
thousand men, women and children were locked inside a 
church where they had taken refuge, and burned alive at 
Cromwell's orders. All these atrocities were done in the 
name of religion and to the glory of God. During those 
dark centuries not only was the Tower of London crowded 
with noble prisoners and the execution-block working over- 
time, but all England was drenched in the blood of an inter- 
necine conflict waged in the cause of Christ ! Catholic and 
Protestant alternated in the sunshine of successive sov- 
ereigns and the fortunes of both great religious parties 
varied with each change of robe and sceptre. At the death 
of Cromwell the Protestant Church of England had become 
firmly and finally established. 

There is always a moral to a story. This is the story. 
One day an Irishman wandered into a Protestant cathedral 
and fell asleep. He was awakened by an indignant official, 
who exhorted him between shakes : 

"Come, move on now ; you're in the wrong place. This 
isn't your church, it's a Protestant one." 

Pat rubbed his eyes and looked about him. 

"Faith," said he, "ain't thot the statue of St. Joseph?" 

"Yes," replied the official. 

"Ain't thot other wan the Virgin Mary?" 



172 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

"Certainly it is. Move along now!" 

"Ain't thot wan the blessed Saviour?" 

"Yes, yes." 

"G'wan, thin! Whin did all thim turn Protestant?" 

Manchester will always be associated in my mind with 
the Philippines. During the summer an exhibition was 
opened there called the "White City," a pocket-edition of 
the great "White City" at Chicago at the time of the 
World's Fair. One of the attractions was a "Philippine 
village," a cluster of rustic huts occupied by a number of 
native Iggorotes, practically naked, and fresh from the 
Philippines. From a tall flag-pole in the centre of the vil- 

¥ lage floated the Stars and Stripes — the only clean thing in 
the place. Now, it is no exaggeration, but a positive fact, 
that fully one-half of the middle and lower-class population 
of Manchester and vicinity who went to see that village 
and beheld our national flag above it, believed those natives 
to be pure Americans, native-born New Yorkers, perhaps ! 
This dense geographical ignorance, more especially regard- 
-ing America, is a prominent English characteristic, not con- 
fined to the lower classes, but frequently encountered in 
higher circles of society as well. Americans visiting Eng- 
land are frequently informed that they "speak excellent 
English." On one occasion much surprise was expressed 
"^^y an addle-headed young nobleman who sat next to an 
American lady at a country-house dinner. "Why, bless me, 
where did you ever learn to speak English? You have no 
American accent, re-arly, y'know." She confided her reply 
in a whisper, "Oh, we had an English missionary in our 

^ tribe." Whereat he marvelled much, gazing steadily ahead 
through his monocle, and then beamed upon her with, "Oh, 
yaas, yaas, of caws; most extr'ordinary, y'know." 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 173 

It did not matter that these Igorrotes were chocolate- 
colored and bare — they were usually referred to as "the 
Americans," and that queer collection of huts as the "Amer- 
ican village!" English visitors were also especially inter- 
ested in a so-called "dog dance," given by the natives two 
or three times a day, and during which an imaginary dog 
is killed, boiled and eaten, in realistic pantomime, by these 
simple children of nature. In their far-off tropic home the 
dog was always a real one and took a prominent part in the 
proceedings, but in Manchester the dog was omitted, and, 
if wise, got outside the city limits. Another absorbing 
object of interest to the open-mouthed believers was the 
Chief of the village, a six-foot Igorrote, who had a record 
as a "head hunter," having killed eight men, whose heads, 
nicely dried, were hanging at his happy home-fireside as 
trophies of his prowess. This fact went still further to 
prove him a genuine American citizen, according to the 
English theory. The entire native costume of male Ig- 
gorrotes being about the area of a pocket handkerchief, it 
was a constant and aggravating mystery to his admirers 
where he carried his gun. 

Generally speaking, the knowledge displayed by the aver- 
age Briton regarding all things American is quite on a par 
with his geographical proficiency. America is looked upon 
as a sort of Utopia, where large conflagrations, shocking 
railway accidents, and wholesale negro lynchings are of 
almost daily occurrence. It is occasionally necessary to 
explain that people in New York and other American cities 
do not go about armed to the teeth, an explanation which 
is usually regarded as a deliberate evasion. "Fancy that ! 
Why, I thought you Americans always carried a pistol and 
were ready to use it at any moment." Then follows the 
usual bromidic corollary : "But of caws you do not requiah 
a pistol in England, y'know." I have met English people 



174 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

of excellent standing who were perfectly certain that I 
carried a concealed gun, and possibly a bowie-knife in my 
boot as well, since I never proved the contrary by taking 
the boot off in evidence. They have read about such things 
and Americans get the benefit of it. It is a noticeable fact, 
however, that throughout Europe nearly all Americans are 
treated with politeness, perhaps because of this prevailing 
uncertainty as to firearms. It does no harm at least, for on 
the Continent courtesy is mostly purchased with gold and 
silver, and seldom proffered gratuitously unless you are 
regarded as apt to shoot ! Par example, it is always a 
pleasant diversion, if a waiter is slow, to use the magic 
word "Goddam." The waiter will instantly vanish and 
your order be served by a nimble substitute, with a constant 
wary eye on your hip pocket. I was once asked in all ser- 
iousness by a charming English lady dining with us in a 
prominent Paris cafe, "Oh, would you please shoot just 
once at the chandelier; I should so love to see the waiters 
go through the windows !" And because I had thought- 
lessly attended dinner without my alleged armory, she re- 
garded me ever after as extremely disappointing. 

One of the English newspapers contained an editorial on 
the great fire in Chelsea, Mass., locating Chelsea on Tre- 
mont Street, in Boston. Such a faux pas is not unusual 
with English papers, while the majority of readers never 
heard of either place. English newspapers are dull, heavy, 
and extremely vague on all matters except the daily Par- 
liamentary reports. There will be columns and pages of 
ponderous arguments and dreary, stupefying discussions of 
that august body, and only a half-column or so about for- 
eign matters. Occasionally the newspapers contain awful 
breaks in geography concerning things that every schoolboy 
ought to know. The London Daily Telegraph is probably 
the best all- round newspaper published in England, with 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 175 

the Daily Mail a close second, but of a different class. The 
Daily Telegraph made a world record in the Russo-Jap- 
anese war that for promptness of service and news ac- 
curacy placed it easily first among all the newspapers of 
that day, not excepting even the American press. The 
Daily Mail is the favorite journal with Americans, how- 
ever, being bright, newsy and conducted in the American 
style — a lonely and attractive sulphide among the bromides 
of English journalism. 

There is much philosophical wisdom to be derived from 
even humble sources. The staple products of Yorkshire 
and Lancashire are cloth goods and dialect, and the slow, 
leisurely manner of transacting business in that region is 
convincing evidence that the man who sits down to wait 
will be still sitting there waiting long after the man who 
hustles has got what they both went after. There is much 
good doctrine in the old assertion that ''God helps those 
who help themselves," but the fact remains equally true 
that a personal, strenuous effort will leave less for God to 
do. Prompt decisions, like prompt remedies, are often 
vitally necessary in business, and all business ethics yield 
to emergencies. A case in point is that of the two little 
girls who were hurrying along in imminent danger of being 
late to school. One said, "Oh, let us kneel down here and 
pray God that we may not be late." The other girl said, 
"No, let's skin along and pray as we skin." They skun and 
got there. 

That seems to be the better way; certainly, it has ad- 
vantages. Shakespeare, an Englishman himself, has given 
Englishmen this valuable financial tip : "Our remedies oft 
within ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to Heaven." In 
other words, personal effort, not supplication, is the trump 
card. Reflections like these in time of stress are comforting 



176 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

to bear in mind. It is also of advantage to resolve oneself 
into a ''Don't Worry Club" and practice the essential prin- 
ciple. But there is a limit. ''Excelsior" and "Casablanca" 
are poems cited as excellent examples of perseverance and 
obedience for the rising generation to inscribe inside its 
hat and seek to emulate. While there is no doubt that 
"Excelsior" as a poem conveys a wholesome moral to busi- 
ness and financial climbers, the moral can be overdone, and 
then something happens to the climber. He may even be 
frozen out permanently. There is a considerable margin 
between perseverance wisely directed and a fool ambition 
to climb an Alp all alone. "Casablanca," too, is a pretty 
poem and conveys another good moral, but that boy was 
only another kind of fool. He waited too long; he had 
plenty of pluck, but no judgment. Common sense should 
have told him that if his father hadn't turned up at that 
last red-hot minute, it was because he couldn't, and young 
Casablanca should have skun along and prayed as he skun. 
The poems and morals are both all right as far as they go, 
but, as previously stated, there is a limit. One live boy is 
better than two dead ones. 

Manchester is the centre of the Yorkshire cotton goods 
industry and, as in Lancashire, most of the mill workers 
wear the "clogs," or wooden-soled shoes. No one who has 
once heard that street music of the "clogs" in the Midlands 
will ever forget it. Oldham, near Manchester, is a fair 
sample. The clack-clack is everywhere and always — the 
sidewalk resounds with it, the air is full of it, and the 
echoes come back from up, down and across the street. 
People go clack-clacking by, clack-clacking up side-streets, 
or clack-clacking in and out of the shops, and the combined 
racket is something fierce. I was passing through a narrow 
street in Oldham when I heard a rattling on the paving- 




Two Americans in 

the Philippine 

Village 




Regarded in Manchester as Genuine Americans 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 177 

stones behind me that sounded like a runaway cab! I 
stepped into a doorway out of danger, and then discovered 
that the din was made by two small boys clattering along 
in their ''clogs" to school. You can always tell when people 
are in a hurry ; it is not necessary to turn round, if they are 
behind you, for you will have ample evidence of their 
presence. The clack-clack is comparatively mild and 
modest when anyone is walking quietly along, but when 
there is a hurry call the "clogs" go clickety-clack, and if 
it is a dog fight ahead or a bill collector behind, then the 
music quickens to a clickety-clickety clack-clack, and you 
know that the owner of those "clogs" is doing a hundred- 
yard dash through the next street. Whether the familiar 
clog-dance of our variety stage owes its happy origin to the 
Midland mill towns, I cannot say — they certainly have the 
clogs, if not the dance. And when on national holidays 
or the occasion of some special football match at the 
famous Crystal Palace grounds near London, the Yorkshire 
and Lancashire population goes sight-seeing to the metrop- 
olis, then resounds the dialect and the "song of the wooden 
shoe" high above the roar of traffic, while London stuffs 
its ears with cotton and folds its hands in pious resignation. 
From a clog dance to a Crematorium is an easy transi- 
tion. The English public has not taken very kindly to the 
gospel of cremation, notwithstanding the apparent vast 
advantage offered by this process of burial over the English 
and Continental fashion of using one grave for an entire 
family, beginning at the bottom and adding layers as re- 
quired. Cremation has many excellent points in its favor 
besides sanitary considerations, and to the majority of 
people but one objection offers itself — the natural aversion 
to consigning a loved one to the incinerating furnace. But 
when it is remembered that the alternative of earth-burial 
consigns the loved one to a process of slow decomposition 



178 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

and decay which is far more revolting, the quick reduction 
to ashes seems preferable. The modern cemetery is to most 
people a beautiful park, adorned by nature and man with 
lovely lawns and shaded paths for quiet meditation; where 
flowers, sweet symbols of life, are budding and blooming 
everywhere. It is pleasant to wander about amid such 
surroundings, apart from the busy world outside, viewing 
the sculptured tributes to departed friends, enjoying the 
restful silence, and the hushed voices of the leaves whis- 
pering in the trees above. All this is dreamy and appro- 
priate, and since it is what we have always been accustomed 
to, is no doubt more or less a solace in many ways. But it 
is not cheerful to reflect that all this beauty of nature and 
exquisite handiwork of man, the verdan4; lawn and flower- 
ing landscape so charming to every sense of those bereaved, 
is but a fair and smiling mask to conceal what lies hidden 
underneath — human remains passing through every stage 
of loathsome putrefaction and decay. Cemeteries, although 
attractive to the eye and serving more or less satisfactorily 
a purpose, yet possess no attendant advantages that cannot 
also be offered with cremation as a substitute for burial. It 
is quite as logical to bury an urn containing the ashes of 
a departed friend or relative as to inter the coffined body 
itself. No change or alteration in the appearance of the 
cemetery is required — its floral beauty and effective land- 
scape remain the same, with sculptured tributes also, if 
desired. But above all, we may have the final certainty, 
the deep content, of knowing that there is to be no gradual 
corruption and dissolution of that form so fondly loved in 
life, neither any possibility of trance, premature burial, or 
kindred horrors that, having happened before, may perhaps 
happen again, and from which any positive exemption can- 
not be guaranteed. Only cremation can give that great 
assurance that brings the peace of certainty; only crema- 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 179 

tion can rob the grave of half its terrors and dangers for 
those yet Hving. And as cremation becomes more widely 
known and understood, just so surely will it gain increasing 
numbers of new friends and advocates. 

Ever in pursuit of useful knowledge, we visited a Crema- 
torium, situated near Manchester. In America it would 
probably be called a Crematory, but in England the Roman 
forms of speech are more often employed, harking back, 
perhaps, to the yoke worn by Britons under five hundred 
years of Roman rule. Old habits are hard to change. 

The building was about the size of a chapel, and occupied 
a prominent location on the main avenue. There was a tall 
''chimney-stack" towering above it, through which were 
carried off the smoke and gases from the incinerating cham- 
ber at the base. A sign-board announced that the Crema- 
torium was open to visitors on Sundays at 3 P. M. 

We arrived there at 3 P. M. exactly, and found five or 
six people waiting patiently before the iron gates, which 
were closed and locked. There were no signs of life inside 
the building and it was beginning to rain. We waited for 
ten minutes, on the general principle that ten minutes over- 
time is allowable for a man, and half an hour for a woman. 
Then the iron gates were occasionally rattled forcibly, 
while another ten minutes passed. The rain had increased 
and there was no shelter except under the dripping trees. 
Finally we went to a neighboring house for information, but 
got no satisfaction. Returning to the Crematorium, we 
found the gates open and entered the grounds. A knock 
on the door was answered by the attendant, an exact replica 
of the typical John Bull, fat and pudgy, with a red face 
decorated by a pair of small side-whiskers, and a breath 
which at once explained the reason of his tardiness and 
inattention to duty. He began to say something and I 
began to say something. 



i8o JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

"Hi beg pawdon, sir; do you wish to see — " 

''Look here, do you call this three o'clock ? Do you know 
what your sign says? What the devil do you mean by 
coming here late like this? Do you know it's raining? Do 
you " 

"Hi beg pawdon, sir. Hi cawn't 'elp it, sir; Hi couldn't 
get 'ere sooner, sir; Hi 'ave to tyke a train from " 

"You're late because you've been drinking, and I'll report 
you in the morning for keeping people waiting in the rain 
here for half an hour!" 

"Hi 'ave not been drinking, sir, honly one hale, sir; Hi 
couldn't " 

"You're another! You're half squiffed now and you 
can't talk straight. Go on and show this shop — you'll be 
reported for this, all right." 

"Yus, Hi will be reported, sir; Hi shall go hand report 
myself, sir. Hi cawn't be talked to like " 

"Here, you sing your song about this Crematorium and 
shut up about yourself. And you sing it to the others 
here — don't talk to me — not a word!" 

John Bull, purple with mingled wrath and ale, and in 
momentary danger of apoplexy from inability to describe 
the Crematorium and explain his dereliction at the same 
time, turned helplessly to the half dozen other waiting vis- 
itors, and, almost weeping with indignant wrath, began 
to talk. 

"This here Crematorium was erected in the year " 

I will not attempt to reproduce the pro forma lecture, 
which was punctuated with gasps of suppressed excitement 
and frequent glares in my direction. 

Someone asked, "How long a time is required for a cre- 
mation ?" 

"Honly forty minutes, sir — ^but 'im, it would tyke a 
hower for 'im!" glaring at me as if he would be only too 
happy to prove it. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED i8i 

But he was sobered ! What with the excitement, and the 
shock of the assault on his dignity and veracity, the effect 
of his Sunday potations en route to his post had been dis- 
pelled and John Bull was slowly but surely cooling off into 
his normal self. He had finished his long lecture about "the 
'ot hair in the chimbley" and the chemical action of the 
''carbon dihoxhides," shown the empty furnace and its ap- 
pliances, "sung his song," and his work was completed. 
As we passed out, I beckoned to him. 

"Here's a shilling for you," I said. "Are you going to 
be late again next Sunday?" 

"Thankee, Guv'nor — Gawd save us. Hi never 'ad such a 
time in hall me life, sir; Hi shall halways remember you, 
Guv'nor ; no, sir, Hi shall not be lyte hagain, sir — not hever, 
sir." He mopped his perspiring face and spoke fervently. 

"All right, then, I won't report you," I replied. Whereat 
he insisted on showing the Columbarium, consisting of 
square steel boxes set into the wall like those in a Safe 
Deposit, only larger, each sealed door being inscribed with 
the name of the person whose ashes, enclosed in a bronze 
urn or casket, reposed therein. 

As we came away. The Only Girl remarked: "I don't 
think I'd care to live near a Crematorium. With the sooty 
smoke from that chimney-stack settling down all over the 
neighborhood, I might be dusting some of Mr. Jones off the 
piano !" 

English and Continental cemeteries resemble each other 
in a general way, but they have certain decorative features 
seldom or never seen in America. Natural flowers are 
seldom seen upon graves after the wilting of funeral tri- 
butes, but in place of these are wire wreaths or crosses 
covered with artificial flowers made from colored glass 
beads. Upon nearly every grave is a glass dome enclosing 
a bead wreath, wax or beaded flowers, and sometimes a 



i82 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

photograph of the deceased person. These glass covers are 
precisely like those used in pastry shops to protect pies and 
cakes from dust, and present a weird appearance to anyone 
more accustomed to shops than cemeteries. The effect 
when the sun shines is dazzling, like hundreds of gigantic 
dewdrops scattered through the grass. 

In an English cemetery there is the same careful and dis- 
tinct drawing of the social line that exists in English society 
— no mingling of the gentry with the commoners. The 
vulgar herd is distinguished from its betters by a wilder- 
ness of plain marble slabs, while in the very best part of 
the cemetery, and usually clustered around the pretty stone 
church, are the sculptured angels, urns and marble monu- 
ments of that exclusive class who will probably be vastly 
surprised some day to find many of the best seats around 
the Throne allotted to commoners, regardless of the special 
arrangement of graves below. Such exhibitions of ''caste" 
and petty social pretensions, based on the "holier than 
thou" scale of measurement, are sufficiently laughable in 
real life without being dragged into the churchyard. The 
English idea of the general resurrection is apparently based 
on the English social law, the nobility to have preference 
in rising when Gabriel blows his summons, follow,ed in turn 
by the gentry and middle class, and then, when everybody 
else has passed into the private boxes, orchestra stalls and 
best seats generally, the common herd can tag along and 
stand up ! The proposition is certainly delicious from al- 
most any point of view. 

Again we have unconsciously wandered from our original 
subject — the weather. After having experienced the differ- 
ent varieties of London fog, we were introduced one day 
to an entirely new form of this distinctively English at- 
traction — a charming and delightful fog at Liverpool. It 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 183 

was called an ''off-shore" fog, being confined to Channel 
waters, while all along the coast the sun was shining 
brightly. This is said to be a peculiar and attractive 
feature of Liverpool fogs. The London, or "land fog," is 
a very different matter — sooty, thick and ''pea-soupy," as 
they call it, wherein both your skin and your linen suffer 
equal indignity. But the Liverpool fog, both local and 
"off-shore," is clean, a word of blessed significance to those 
who have endured the other variety. We shall always re- 
member this Liverpool fog, for we were then sojourning 
at New Brighton, opposite the big sea-port at the mouth 
of the Mersey, and a fog of any kind blocking the entrance 
of this great water artery of England is always prolific of 
trouble. It seemed like two different worlds in touch — one 
shrouded in gloom and mystery, the other bright with 
sunshine. Such a variety and Bedlam of sounds came out 
of the murky depths — horns and ringing of bells from 
anchored craft, high-pitched and long-drawn whistles from 
coast steamships, whoops from the siren steam-horn, the 
muffled tones of the lighthouse fog bell, and an occasional 
deep basso-profundo blast of a big liner feeling its way — 
all sorts and kinds of medley. It sounded like a barnyard 
afloat out there in the shrouded mist — the Moo-00-oo-OO- 
00-00-00 of the liner, then a bla-a-a-a-t from some smaller 
steamship, followed by a yah-yah-yah-ya-a-a-a-aaah from 
a tin-horn sailing vessel, a squeal from some impatient tug- 
boat — you could shut your eyes and almost smell the new- 
mown hay, the sweet breath of the lowing kine, the violets 
in the lane, and other odors perhaps not so poetic, but which 
always cluster around a barnyard, ashore or afloat. And 
suddenly the fog began to clear away — long lanes of sun- 
shine pierced the mist and opened up great vistas of blue 
water dotted with a procession of ocean and Channel 
craft already beginning to creep into port. 



i84 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

Fogs are the precursors, attendants and trailers of the 
winter season — that hopeless and dreary three months dur- 
ing which the great English nation affrights the Gods by 
«, stuffing its ears and nostrils with cotton, winding thick 
mufflers around its sensitive neck and blanket-shawls over 
its tender knees, in 'busses or railway carriages, and also 
occasionally displaying that remarkably British institution, 
a mouth filter or sieve, strapped on like a dog-muzzle and 
designed to prevent the inhaling of microbes, germs and 
§ other pollywogs of the air ! The fog and the filter go hand 
in hand in merry England, along with the hermetically- 
sealed windows and clammy atmosphere. 

The British Isles include England, Ireland, Scotland, 
Wales and the Isle cvf Man, and the people of these various 
sections are very clannish. They are all one or the other, 
and they are all equally the "best of the lot," even to the 
little Manxmen of the Isle of Man, where all the cats are 
born without tails, but are also the "best of the lot" just 
the same. As a matter of fact, however, the Scotch are 
the real rulers of Britain — politically, the others do not 
count. And how these different clans do love each other! 
All over England the saying, "Taffy was a Welshman, 
Taffy was a thief," is accepted literally. What the Welsh 
think of the English is best left unsaid. As a matter of 
fact, we found the Welsh people quite as pleasant, hospit- 
able and altogether likeable, as the English. There is 
nothing on earth that an Englishman regards as equal to 
what he can get at 'ome in England. He is not ordinarily 
a likeable person on this very account, since he can see no 
good in anything not English made, or English managed, 
and has only criticism for everything else, whether made 
by God or man. 

This is no fancy sketch or flight of the imagination. It 
is strictly true and accords both with Hoyle and Price Col- 
lier, who states: 




When King Edward Bowed 




Old Richmond Bridge 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 185 

John Bull, in his own personality, is a colossal figure of 
egotism and self-satisfied gratification. He is inflated with 
a tremendous sense of his own importance, and a supreme 
indifference to others. That any family, tribe or nation 
should desire to live under any rule but English, is to him 
unthinkable. This idiosyncrasy is apparent in the dedica- 
tion by Lord Curzon, late Viceroy of India, in his book 
entitled, ''Problems of the Far East." He says, "To those 
who believe that the British Empire is, under Providence, 
the greatest instrument for good that the world has ever 
seen, and who hold with the writer, that its work in the 
Far East is not yet accomplished, this book is dedicated." 
In this connection it may well be asked where, in the his- 
tory of mankind, one may look to find another assumption 
of virtue and omniscience, coupled with inordinate self- 
satisfaction. Who believes that the world is better where 
the English dominate? The English. Who believes that 
India is happier? The English. Who believes that Ireland 
is happier? The English. Who believes that the East 
under English protection is happier? The English. This 
amazing assumption that England and God (for in Lord 
Curzon's dedication the British Empire takes precedence 
of the Deity) have between them done more for the world 
than any other agency, is characteristic of the English 
people. They know only one way — that is their way, and 
their way is the best way, and is sanctioned by God, who, 
by the way, is the God of the English national church. 
The opinion of Ireland, India, or the Far East counts for 
nothing. Providence, by grace of England, doeth all things 
well. Interesting, isn't it? 

Englishmen are not only insular in prejudice, decrying 
everything on earth external to their little isle, but also 
clannish, decrying and backbiting each other. Yorkshire 
is especially derided by other counties, and the alleged 



i86 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

miserly, stingy nature of the Yorkshireman is held up to 
the world in the following characteristic lines, taken from 
three postcards which are very popular in England — out- 
side of Yorkshire: 

A YORKSHIREMAN'S ADVICE TO HIS SON. 

"See all, hear all, say nowt; 
Eat all, sup all, pay nowt; 
And if tha does owt for nowt, 
Do it for thisen." (thyself). 

The next is equally business-like and conveys a very 
thrifty moral, the application of which is very far from 
being confined to Yorkshire. 

A YORKSHIRE WOMAN'S ADVICE TO HER DAUGHTER. 

"When tha starts thinkin' abaht gettin' wed, 
Alius see t'bloke hes plenty o' brass. 
Love in a cottage may be all reeght, 
But a lahl brass is mich better. 
Tha can love a man wi' summat 
Just as weel as yan wi' nowt." 

On the remaining postcard is a coat-of-arms showing a 
large shield bearing a flitch of bacon, a flea, a fly and a 
magpie, the shield being surmounted by a horse's head. 
The scroll below bears a motto, **Qui capit, Ille habet," 
which, freely translated, is, "Grab it and keep it." Below 
this facetious illustration appears the following rhyme, 
toast, and translation, reproduced in all the quaintness 
of the olden text. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 187 

A YORKSHIREMAN'S COAT OF ARMS. 

A Magpy behold and a Fly and a Flea 
And a Yorkshireman's qualifications you'll see, 
To Backbite and Spunge, and to Chatter amain, 
Or anything else, sir, by which he can gain. 
The Horse shews they Buy few tho' many they Steal. 
Unhang'd they're worth naught, does the Gammon reveal, 
But let Censure stand by, and not Bias the Mind, 
For Others as Bad as the Yorkshire you'll find. 
"Here's tiv us, all on us. May we niver want nowt, noan on us. 
Nor me neither." 

Qui Capit, Ille Habet. 
Yorkshire translation : 
"Cop t'lot en stick." 

The Yorkshireman, thus held up to the derision of his 
fellowman, retorts on his Lancashire rival, whom he re- 
gards with the same fervid and passionate affection dis- 
played toward each other by the famous Kilkenny cats — a 
sentiment that is cordially reciprocated by all Lancashire. 
The coat-of-arms displayed on the postcard devoted to 
Lancashire bears a duck, a clock, a drain-pipe and a drum, 
on a red and blue shield surmounted by another duck. 
Below is the rhyme, in Lancashire dialect : 

A LANCASHIREMON'S COAT-OF-ARMS. 

The Lancashiremon's Coat of Arms yo' mun know, 
'S Drum, Clock, and Duck, wi' a Drain-pipe also, 
Fer a Drum, when it's 'ollow, meks plenty o' din. 
Same wi' th' Lancashiremon, wherever he's bin. 
T clock goas on tick fer as long as it con, 
And soa, when he's chance, wull a Lancashiremon. 
A Duck's niver reight on'y when thur's som' wet, 
And th' Lancashiremon'll sup o' he con get. 
A Drain-pipe's noa use till it's stuck under grawnd, 
And it's soa wi' a Lancashiremon you'll a' fawnd. 



i88 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

In addition to the above the Lancashire shield has a 
scroll bearing this inscription, which certainly shows an 
accommodating spirit : "I'll Sup or Feight wi' Onybody." 

But if you really desire to foment an insurrection in Eng- 
lish society, all you need do is to praise the Irish ! They 
will cheerfully and unanimously drop every other pleasure 
and all business to unite in abusing the whole Celtic race. 
Suppose you say, "Why, they are the best soldiers in your 
army; they saved your Highlanders and your Surrey Lan- 
cers and the very battle itself at Bloomfontain ! Your best 
generals are Irish, too !" You will not get any farther. 
They will almost foam at the mouth explaining to you that 
all these men have been Anglicised in the British army! 

The ability of the British mind to appreciate humor is 
a subject on which the ablest observers disagree. It is en- 
tirely a matter of degree and perception. Someone has 
said that it requires a surgical operation to get a joke into 
the head of a Scotchman. To perform this operation on 
an Englishman may not require such heroic treatment, but 
before the operation can be regarded as a success the joke 
must be explained in detail and possibly illustrated by dia- 
grams, after the manner of "Punch." Then he sees it — 
perhaps ! Or possibly he will see the point later on and 
tell you a day or two afterwards, "It's ripping, old chap; 
I simply howled!" 

The quality of English humor, like that of mercy, is not 
strained. That is to say, it is not reduced to the essence, or 
fineness of degree, that characterizes American humor. The 
point is always in evidence — always right in front where 
one can see it at first glance. Nothing is left in uncertainty 
— -the conclusion is never deftly concealed and thereby made 
all the more delicious for its quick discovery and apprecia- 
tion, as in America. An Englishman likes his humor dished 
up to him on a ladle, not served as a delicate tidbit. He will 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 189 

strain at the subtle gnat and swallow the too obvious camel, 
hoofs, hump and all. 

Witness an evening social gathering at a private house. 
Every English person, man or woman, is a born entertainer, 
or thinks so, which is often quite as satisfactory. There- 
fore everybody is down on the host's list for a "stunt" of 
some kind, and is expected to prance out at the proper time 
and help entertain — play the piano, talk wittily, sing a song, 
do a violin solo, and, as Dundreary said, "Make a jolly 
ath of himself." The popular tendency is to be humorous ; 
puns are irresistibly funny and conundrums perfectly ex- 
cruciating. Someone will perhaps remark carelessly: 

"Oh, I say, have you ever hard — er — have you ever 
hard the story of the three wells?" 

All hands delighted, and a chorus of, "Oh, do tell us!" 
"No, what is it?" 

The inquirer looks very solemnly around the circle, 
shakes his head mournfully, and says, "Well, well, well." 

The company shrieks with laughter, going off in singles 
and batches like a bunch of fire-crackers, according to the 
length of their mental fuses. The joke is one that every- 
body comprehends, and the reputation of the propounder 
as a most extraordinary fun-maker rises immensely. 

As the titters subside, the host consults his list surrepti- 
tiously and with upraised, hushing palm ponderously an- 
nounces : 

"Er — I feel very shar that we should all appreciate it 
very much if Miss Mothpatch will kindly favor us with a 
song." The company settles into various attitudes of resig- 
nation, listens more or less intently, and applauds loudly 
as the lady retreats to cover. 

"Remarkable voice that, y'know," somebody says in a 
loud aside, while the fair one tries to appear deaf and 
everyone nods assent. You murmur, "Quite so, indeed," 
and look enraptured at the ceiling. 



190 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

Suddenly a young man, wagging his ears with sup- 
pressed mirth, propounds : 

"I say, why did the owl howl?" (Now, herein lies a secret 
— if he says *'owl howl" you know he is good class, but if 
he says "howl 'owl," you have reason to wonder how he 
ever got inside the house.) 

Everyone looks wise and expectant, ready to grapple in- 
tellectually with the answer, which bursts out triumphantly 
upon us : 

"Because the wood-pecker would peck her!" 

Thereupon ensues the inevitable explanation — some can't 
see it, others gurglingly explain, dissect or magnify it, and 
finally the slow ones roar, too. Then, rushing on his fate, 
or following his luck, or whatever it may be, the young man 
tries another: 

"I say, what did Noah say when he hard the deluge com- 
ing down?" 

"Oh, tell us; what did he say?" palpitate the listeners. 

"'Ark!" 

That caught on nobly, too. Then some bromide said, 
"Makes Noah an English cockney, rarther!" This touched 
off another titter, and the host announced : 

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will now have a song by Mr. 
Adam Sapple and myself, accompanied by your hostess." 

This called for tremendous applause, but everyone 
seemed to brace for a shock, apparently from past experi- 
ence. After the first line, "What Are the Wild Waves 
Saying?" I braced also. This ancient conundrum was sung 
with astonishing verve, amounting almost to a demand for 
your answer or your life, Adam's apple doing a wonderful 
up and down accompaniment from behind his high collar, 
and the piano literally howling for mercy. The hush that 
followed was more than eloquent, until the company recov- 
ered its presence of mind and demanded an encore. But 
this was beamingly and perspiringly declined. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 191 

By-and-by it became our turn and I tendered the classic 
morceau : 

"What goes 'round a button ?" 

They looked at each other in polite dismay. Someone 
enquired, "Do you mean the hole, sir?" and someone else 
said, disparagingly, "Why, the cloth, of caws — rearlly, 
that's very stupid, y'know." 

There was a general demand for the answer, and . I 
therefore gave it : 

"Why, a goat goes 'round a-buttin' !" 

You could have heard a feather drop in that dense, dense 
silence and utter gloom. Everyone sat dumb, nobody smiled, 
nobody saw it, and I began to realize that their intellectual 
machinery had stopped and could almost hear the fog- 
whistle. Finally somebody said : 

"I beg your pawdon. I really don't see — er — you cawn't 
put a goat round a button, y'know." Another earnest as- 
surance followed : 

"I say, it's the buttonhole goes round the button, old 
chap." 

"A-buttin'," I shouted, "not the button !" No use. 

On the funereal occasion that I am recalling, this conun- 
drum started a debate that in turn plunged most of those 
present into incipient paresis. One man at last saw the 
point and began to laboriously explain it to his neighbors, 
while I worked heroically over others who appealed to me 
for light. Gradually the great truth dawned here and there, 
the darkness lifted, and through the murky mental gloom 
came the bright rays of understanding. But the joke was a 
dismal failure. Nobody seemed to like it, although I took 
the trouble to write out the explanation for three or four 
who apparently viewed it as a sort of 15-block puzzle to 
be pored over at home. I have always felt that the original 
goat was not entirely alone that evening. 



192 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

After supper, desiring to atone in some measure for the 
previous disaster, I requested an announcement made that 
I would contribute again to the general entertainment. This 
created a considerable stir, and as I rose I noticed that sev- 
eral of the company had a worried look, and some rose to 
go. A little child burst out crying. Although the outlook 
seemed dubious, I said: 

''Now, ladies and gentlemen, here is a very easy one; 
it came all the way from a New York kindergarten alone ; 
I know you will enjoy it; now pay careful attention; this 
is it, Why is a henf' 

Just as I expected, there was a blank stare, so in order to 
save wear and tear on the straining intellects, I gave the 
solution at once : 

^'Because the higher the fewer" 

They said afterward that that was what broke up the 
party. The dead and wounded lay everywhere just as they 
fell, and the pale, cold moon looked down on a silent and 
deserted battlefield as we drove away in the hansom. And 
I honestly think that if war should ever break out between 
America and England, it would only be necessary to send 
over a regiment of bill-posters to placard these two antique 
conundrums and their answers all over Britain. There is 
just enough obstructive matter in them to muddle John Bull 
good, and when once they get well started boring their 
worm-like way through the English skull and sooner or 
later penetrate the crust, in that fatal second the blinding 
flash of comprehension will overwhelm and forever anni- 
hilate that man. 

As a matter of fact, very few English people understand 
either American jokes or American slang. There was a 
certain Baronet who was an exception. He understood, or 
rather, said he did. At all events, he always haw-hawed, 
and he had one ancient joke of his own so pat that he 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 193 

never tired of it. Like many of the male nobility and army 
officers, he wore corsets and was very proud of his figure. 
There was no secrecy about it — everybody knew it. This 
gave him material for his perennial joke. No matter what 
you might say, the Baronet had his return shot ready. 
"Fine day, isn't it, old chap? Of corset is!" and up would 
go his monocle as he observed with delighted and expectant 
grin the effect on your risibles. And it is proper to add that 
although the social value of a Baronet, in comparison with 
an Earl or other lofty sprig of nobility, is about that of a 
dime beside a haughty half-dollar, this Baron's "of corset 
is" was a standard ijoke up there in the ethereal blue of 
Court society and was said to have even affected Royalty 
to tears of laughter. 

The Baronet was very fond of grouse shooting on the 
Scottish moors and expatiated learnedly on the best methods 
of cooking game. He told an American that the proper 
way to prepare larks was to hang a dead woodcock on a 
nail, attach the larks to the claws of the woodcock and 
leave the whole bunch hanging there for eight days. By 
some occult process the excellence of the woodcock goes 
into the larks, and at the end of the eight days they throw 
away the woodcock and eat the larks. The American was 
much interested, and replied, "We do the same thing in 
America, except that at the end of eight days we throw 
away both the woodcock and the larks and eat the nail !" 

It was along the same line of reasoning, and with a patri- 
otic view of imparting useful information and at the same 
time preventing these children of John Bull from becom- 
ing unduly puffed up over their native phenomena, that I 
occasionally invited attention to the remarkable habits of 
the Side Hill Gouger, an animal peculiar to the mountainous 
fastnesses of our great and glorious West. This strange 
quadruped possessed an attraction to the average British 



.194 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

intellect that was positively uncanny. It furnished material 
for many a hot discussion, and a timely reference to it has 
scared many a refractory child to sleep. The "Gouger" 
was commonly understood to be a sort of indeterminate 
nondescript between the Cody buffalo and the Fennimore 
Cooper savage, and the memory of his weird manner of 
departing this life will long linger in the minds of true 
believers. This is the tale and the manner of telling: 

"The Gouger somewhat resembles the common 'moke,' 
or donkey, save that it has horns and is noted for its huge 
size and extraordinary ferocity. Many a belated traveler 
would lose his life were it not for the most interesting cir- 
cumstance that owing to its long habitation of steep moun- 
tainsides, the legs of one side have become nearly twice the 
length of those on the other side. Owing to this fact the 
animal cannot turn or follow its intended victim, so if the 
traveler succeeds in dodging its first rush he is safe. The 
American Indians have a most ingenious method of hunting 
it. A fleet and daring brave conceals himself on a hillside 
adjacent to some level spot of considerable extent, and 
awaits his game. When the Gouger approaches, the fearless 
redskin leaves his hiding-place and proceeds to infuriate 
the beast by approaching him from the windward side with 
a large piece of Limburger cheese. The enraged animal 
instantly charges, and the savage, keeping just out of reach, 
leads him on until the baffled animal finds himself on level 
ground. This is his undoing, for the short limbs on one 
side cause Gouger to spin around in a circle, and, work- 
ing himself into a frenzy, his rotary progress becomes so 
rapid that all the blood is thrown by centrifugal force into 
the blood-vessels on one side. The delicate walls of some 
of the smaller capillary vessels soon give way, and the death 
of the animal is instantaneous." 

It was worth crossing the ocean to hear the gasps of 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 195 

"Most extraordinary," *'Gawd save us," "Wonderful, by- 
Jove," and other tributes of respect invariably tendered by 
a British audience at the conclusion of this truly remarkable 
narrative. It never failed to score a breathless and horrified 
hit. 

There must be a lot of vegetarians in England, for in 
every city are numbers of "vegetarian restaurants," dotted 
as frequently as chemist shops. The poorer classes are 
mostly vegetarians perforce, and they certainly have an un- 
healthy appearance. This in a land where American roast 
beef and South-Down mutton chops are world-famous, 
seems a trifle singular. A certain family living near us 
were vegetarians, "and a proper lot of scrubs, too," accord- 
ing to the butcher — stunted, thin and pale. They ate no 
meat whatever; even their dog was a vegetarian. This dog 
was a particularly strong and healthy-looking animal and 
was pointed out with pride by the owner as an example of 
what a bean and potato diet could do for even a dog. One 
day we observed this vegetarian animal industriously dig- 
ging up a big bone that had been buried for future reference 
by the dog belonging to our hostess, and learned from her 
that the husky vegetarian came over nearly every day to 
help her Irish setter eat his meat dinner ! 

A London Sabbath, as previously stated, is the dreariest 
of dreary days, even under the sunniest of skies. But Lon- 
don on a foggy or rainy Sunday, or gripped in the clammy 
chill and murk of a winter's day, is desolation itself — a 
prison is cheerful in comparison and even cemeteries afford 
a wildly hilarious contrast. But there is a way out — not by 
train, 'bus, tram or other conveyance, but a joyful and sure 
escape, nevertheless, which, like roller-skating or drowning 
a cat, is easy for those who know how. 



196 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

I sat before my open fire in London one Sunday morning 
after the regulation bacon and eggs — a drizzly sleet outside 
and a damp chill everywhere in the room except inside the 
little fireplace itself. My feet were warm and my back 
half-frozen; if I turned about, my back got warm, but my 
nose froze — a characteristic of most English rooms in the 
winter season. I longed for warmer and more congenial 
climes, and in sudden determination to escape for a time at 
least, I went to California! Yes, to California, and by a 
route far superior to rapid-transit dirigibles and rather more 
in the line of a magic carpet or an Alladin's lamp. 

I had in my trunk a variety of time-tables and descriptive 
pamphlets of foreign resorts, so after deciding where to go 
I reposed comfortably in my easy-chair, lighted my faithful 
pipe, opened the particular pamphlet or book I preferred, 
and, presto — I began to travel! In a jiffy I had left behind 
all cold and sleet and the dreary city itself, and knocking the 
ashes from my pipe and putting on my glad society smile, I 
walked into the beautiful Mission Hotel in Southern Cali- 
fornia. Ah, what a difference, what balmy air, what ex- 
quisite tropic bloom of flower and foliage, with the bluest 
of sky and the brightest of sunshine ! From the shady 
veranda I saw the palms waving their fronds in welcome; 
a sweet scent of orange and jasmine blossoms was wafted 
from the distant gardens. Somewhere above, the soft tinkle 
of a mandolin fell lightly on the air and the ripple of a 
laugh floated down from an upper window. As in a dream 
I wandered, forgetting London and its dismal garb, oblivious 
of everything but present enjoyment. After a delightfully 
refreshing bath to clear away the dusty traces of my jour- 
ney, and a delicious lunch on the veranda, I lighted a cigar 
and walked about the quiet grounds. The older portion of 
the hotel, according to a legend of early Spanish days, was 
the relic of an ancient monastery, with a queer old well 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 197 

nearby, where the tired traveler once upon a time found 
comfort and refreshment. Nowadays the dusty-throated 
traveler is tenderly cared for inside the hotel, and so keeps 
step with the march of progress. I strolled among the 
orange trees, rested awhile upon a rustic seat in the shade 
of the palms, and finally returned to the hotel porch and 
gazed thoughtfully out over the arched entrance. Dreamy 
fancies of the old Spanish mission mingled with the blue 
smoke of my cigar, and I was gradually drifting into a lovely 
after-dinner siesta, when bing! a great bell hanging almost 
over my head struck three times. I don't think I have been so 
startled since big Carolus in the Cathedral belfry at Antwerp 
struck unexpectedly one day when I was right beside it. It 
certainly was very provoking, for up to that moment I had 
been perfectly comfortable and contented with all California. 
But when that bell struck ! — well, I lost my cigar, my temper 
and all interest in California; I just marched straight to the 
hotel office, settled my bill and left immediately, on the 
minute, waiting for no explanation, although the clerk said 
something about the bell having been there for over two hun- 
dred years and no previous complaint had ever — but I didn't 
wait ! I made a bee line for Colorado Springs. 

Ah, there is the real thing ! Romance and reality, the past 
glorified by the present, and a hotel, the "Alta Vista," with 
no seductive, drowsy jasmine to lull a man to sleep, and no 
d — eafening mission-bell to scare him blue. A small log- 
cabin stood here, once, but the magic touch of some genii has 
changed that humble cabin into a modern hotel. The view, 
the alta vista (high view) was waiting there beyond the hotel 
in palpitating eagerness for my opinion of it — a wonderful 
expanse of mountain and valley, with an occasional lofty 
peak sticking up through the clouds, a mile or more above 
the sea. I looked long and earnestly, and many new and 
beautiful thoughts crowded into my mind, especially one 



198 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

concerning a lovely combination of Scotch and other things 
known as an alta balla (high ball), which proved of material 
help after the long up-hill trip from the plains. Then I 
went for a drive and saw some more scenery. Colorado is 
certainly gifted in the matter of scenery. As I looked down 
on the terrible chasms and canyons, the low-lying valley 
with a faint wisp of smoke curling up from some solitary 
cabin, the split, grim-visaged peaks and upheaved moun- 
tains all around, I thought of the Irishman who saw for the 
first time an express train zip into a tunnel and vanish. 
"Howly Saints," he gasped, "there's going to be a divvle 
of a smash wan day whin thot thing misses the hole !" 

Before me lay mapped the awful result of some such mis- 
carriage of Nature. I tried to imagine that chaos of tur- 
moil and volcanic wrath, the frightened clouds skurrying 
overhead, the red glare of the heavens, and the probable 
view from where I stood. I gave it up and went to look 
at the Balanced Rock — a gigantic boulder overhanging a 
precipice and trembling on the razor-edge of nothing. I 
waited quite a while to see it go over, for it apparently 
needed only a touch or a puff of wind to send it rolling 
downhill clear to Chicago! They said the rock had been 
anchored there for years and that it was impossible for it 
to get away, but I hung around all the same, and then gave 
that up. Then I rode over for a view of the famous Seven 
Falls. At the summit I slipped and got a bad fall myself, 
and not caring for the other six I returned to the hotel. It 
was then nearly five P. M. I sat down in one of the large 
rockers on the piazza, enjoying with eyes half shut the 
matchless view. But the exhilarating mountain air seemed 
to have become perceptibly cooler. A knocking disturbed 
me, and I drowsily recognized a familiar voice, "Your tea 
is ready, sir." With wide-open eyes I beheld the interior 
of my rooms in London and the maid-servant bustling about 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 199 

the tea-table. It was the sacred hour for English tea, I 
was reposing comfortably in my own easy-chair, and the 
fire in my grate was nearly out. 

The usual marrow-chilling fog was still enshrouding Lon- 
don, but I was quite content. I had passed a delightful Sab- 
bath, far away from fog and England both. I did not envy 
the passing throng, even those who journeyed in haughty 
limousines. I knew a trick worth two of that. And next 
time I shall go to Japan. I have always desired to visit 
Japan. 

London has been good to me, and I am very fond of it, 
but only when the weather is behaving itself. I am fond of 
Paris, in a way, and quite contented in Berlin. I am also 
fond of New York, proud of New York, and proud not only 
of being an American, but an American from New York. 
Many times I have been asked the question, "Which do you 
like best, America or Europe?" or "What city do you like 
best. New York or London ?" For answer I tell them of the 
man who was dying and somebody suggested a clergyman. 
He said, "No, I am content — it makes no difference where 
I go. I have friends in both places." 

London is solid, respectable, hearty and satisfying, like 
its own glorious big steaks and thick South-Down chops. 
Paris is like a souffle and a cold bottle, with a Hungarian 
orchestra behind the palms. Berlin is bright and lively like 
Paris, but more solid and satisfying, and does not begin to 
get sleepy till sunrise, which is very different from London 
or even Paris. New York is all three in one, with frills 
and ruches of lobster Newburg, soft-shell crabs, and other 
things celestial and ambrosial that are utterly unknown to 
Europe. Therefore, with friends in all, I am equally con- 
tent in either great metropolis, but always glad to get back 
to New York! 

Incidentally, I will point out here a brief scamper or two 



200 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

about London, for the benefit of those people who have only 
a short time to spare, as is the case with so many visiting 
Americans. The route should, however, be gone over far 
more slowly, for days, weeks and months may be passed in 
these highways and byways of a great city with vast benefit 
and enjoyment. One does not tire of London, somehow — 
it may be slow, but it is wondrous sure and satisfying. 

Charing Cross should be the starting point, as the centre 
of interest in the metropolis. Adjoining it is Trafalgar 
Square, one of the finest open spaces in the British capital, 
with the lofty Nelson column, guarded by the four great 
Landseer lions at its base. On the upper side of the 
Square is the famous National Gallery, containing master- 
pieces of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Van Dyck, Gainsborough, 
Turner and other great artists. Leading from Trafalgar 
Square is Pall Mall, lined by famous Clubs and buildings 
of note, including St. James Palace and Marlborough 
House, both royal residences. St. James Park and Buck- 
ingham Palace, the residence of the King, are just to the 
south. Also leading from Trafalgar Square is Whitehall, 
containing the Treasury, Admiralty and other principal 
branches of the Government. Before the ancient palace 
are always two mounted cuirassiers with high-plumed hel- 
mets, brass breast-plates, tall Wellington boots and "white 
tights," each soldier motionless before his sentry-box like 
uniformed equestrian statues, "ready to ride on the king's 
business," — a custom and service dating back for hundreds 
of years. 

Just below is the great edifice and clock tower which will 
be immediately recognized as the Houses of Parliament. 

Westminster Hall, at the side of the Houses of Parlia- 
ment, dates back to the fourteenth century. Opposite is the 
venerable Westminster Abbey, containing Tombs and 
Chapels of English Kings and monuments to heroes and 




Twickenham Ferry: — Fare a Penny 




A Typical English Church- Yard 



JOHxN BULL, LIMITED 201 

great men. Near by stands St. Margaret's Church with its 
beautiful stained-glass windows. Here also is Westminster 
School, one of the oldest in England. Stretching along the 
west shore of the Thames from Westminster Bridge runs 
the Victoria Embankment, with Cleopatra's Needle midway, 
and along the opposite shore runs the Albert Embankment, 
leading to Vauxhall Bridge. 

Starting again from Trafalgar Square and turning west, 
only a short distance away is Piccadilly, lined with fash- 
ionable residences, hotels, clubs, and such well-known 
places as Burlington House, the famous Arcade, and other 
points of interest. From Piccadilly Circus in the summer 
season start the coaches and four-in-hands for Richmond, 
Hampton Court, and other delightful show-places along the 
Thames. At the end of Piccadilly is Park Lane, bordered 
with the costly homes of millionaries, and just beyond is 
Hyde Park, where London society parades daily from 
Hyde Park Corner to Kensington Gate. Parallel to this 
drive in Rotten Row, a broad bridle-path for horseback 
riding and flanked by shady promenades filled daily with 
the beauty and chivalry of London's wealthy West End. 

The Albert Memorial, erected by Queen Victoria to the 
memory of the Prince Consort, and Albert Hall, a circular 
building seating eight thousand people and devoted to 
fashionable concerts, are at the Kensington side of the 
Park. Near Albert Hall is the Imperial Institute, part of 
which is occupied by the London University. The Exhibi- 
tion Galleries, containing the Science Exhibition and In- 
dian Museum, and the Royal College, are near by. The 
great South Kensington Museum and the Natural History 
Museum are just beyond. Kensington Gardens, a beautiful 
park containing Kensington Palace, where Queen Victoria 
was born and resided until her accession to the throne, is 
within easy reach. Thence by carriage one may visit Kew 
Gardens, one of the most famous spots in England. 



202 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

Another interesting trip is into the older part of London, 
starting again from Trafalgar Square and proceeding down 
the Strand and Fleet Street, replete with historical interest 
on all sides, past St. Paul's Cathedral and the Guildhall 
to the little space around which stand the Bank of England, 
Royal Exchange and Mansion House, or residence of the 
Lord Mayor. A little further on is the Monument com- 
memorating the Great Fire of London, London Bridge, and 
the Tower with its Crown Jewels and historic memories of 
royal and titled prisoners sacrificed to the block and axe. 
Nearby is the Tower Bridge with its remarkable lifting 
roadway. 

Should you wish to see the seamy side of London, sunk 
in the same repulsive poverty and misery that once bred a 
French Revolution and may some time breed an English 
one, you will go to the East End, or "Whitechapel" dis- 
trict. Take a hansom by day, and a policeman with you 
after dark, and even then you will not be entirely safe, for 
there are many alleys and windings there into which even 
the police seldom venture. The main thoroughfares are 
safe at all times. In this district, too, are found the 
"costers," dressed in a sort of Mexican style with hun- 
dreds of pearl buttons decorating the costume. 

After having "done" London, all rural England extends 
inviting arms to the visitor from other shores, and a great 
variety of trips are available for your choice. There are 
four-horse coaching trips through Cornwall, Devon, the 
beautiful Lake country and rural Wales, boating trips up 
the lovely Thames and trips by rail or automobile to his- 
toric show-towns, or the famous South Coast resorts. Eng- 
land is a veritable summer Paradise, offering everywhere 
an unlimited range for instruction or enjoyment. There is 
no country-side like the English country-side, with its firm 
yet gentle lines of hill and dale, its ordered confusion of 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 203 

features, its deer parks and downlands, its castles and 
stately houses, its hamlets and old churches, its farms and 
ricks, great barns and ancient trees, its pools and ponds 
and shining threads of rivers, its village greens and kindly 
inns. Other country-sides have these pleasant aspects, but 
none such variety, none that attract so steadfastly through- 
out the year. Thus speaks an English lover of English 
rural scenery and landscape. Yet not all people think alike, 
for other countries have attractions, too. Picardy is pink 
and white and pleasant in the blossom time. Burgundy is 
lovely with its wide hillsides and vineyards, Italy offers 
its wayside chapels and olive orchards, the Ardennes has 
its woods and gorges, its torrents and romantic ruins ; Tou- 
raine, the Rhineland, the Campagna with its distant Appen- 
nines, and the snow-topped mountain background of Switz- 
erland, and leave their special beauty and glories im- 
printed on the memory. But none, it is claimed, so fre- 
quently change character, or have such diversified sunlight 
and cloudland, or so perpetual a refreshment of soft, strong 
sea-winds, as merry England. Thus rhapsodizes another 
lover of the English country-side. 

But one must judge for himself. Take your Baedecker, 
gird up your purse, and go forth into your kingdom, for all 
these things shall be gathered unto him who hath eyes to 
see and soul to appreciate. 

From London to Dover is a journey of special interest, 
through the ancient Saxon kingdom of Kent. Every sil- 
ver-tongued description breathes the selfsame story of 
England, which here unfolds itself century after century, 
which will speak to you from the ivy-clad ruins of feudal 
fortresses, and from marble tombs of warrior kings and 
imperious bishops lining aisle and nave of the ancient 
churches. Not a town or hamlet through which you pass 
that has not its record of ruthless pillage and cruel slaugh- 



204 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

ter, not a Cathedral crypt that has not been oft a refuge 
place for shrieking women and children from massacring 
invaders. Every foot of the exquisite stretches of orchard 
valleys, of hillsides smiling with green and yellow crops, 
of woodland clumps and forest patches, of wide-spreading 
oaks and beeches, has been fighting-ground over and over 
again. The Kentish coast, being nearest to the Continental 
mainland, was the logical landing-place for foreign in- 
vaders. Caesar beached his Roman galleys near to Dover, 
probably at Deal. The Saxon conquerors landed at about 
the same place, and the Normans occupied Kent and its 
Saxon cities after the great battle of Hastings. 

At Eltham, nine miles from London, are the ruins of the 
Palace of the English Kings from Henry the Third to 
Henry the Eighth. In this royal residence Queen Eliza- 
beth passed her baby days and here Van Dyck painted the 
memorable portrait of Charles the First. Maidstone, far- 
ther on, is a city of great antiquity and all the surrounding 
country rich in picturesque ruins and relics of the past. 
Here are the hop gardens, blossoming in golden glory, and 
orchards of the cherry and apple trees for which Kent is 
famous. Leeds Castle, near by, belonged to a Norman 
family in the days of the Conqueror, and afterwards be- 
came a royal residence under Edward the Second. Later 
it was the prison of a murdered ki'ng, Richard the Second, 
and is today still well preserved. At the stately city of 
Rochester is the Cathedral, second oldest in the kingdom, 
and Rochester Castle, a Norman stronghold on the site of 
the former Roman citadel. Gadshill, close by, was the home 
of Charles Dickens, and the neighboring inn was made 
famous by Mr. Pickwick and his friends. Thence we come 
to Canterbury, the Mecca of Chaucer's pilgrims, dominated 
by the towers of its illustrious Cathedral, the largest in 
England and dating from the time of that St. Augustine 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 205 

who christened the Saxon King Ethelbert. The Cathedral 
contains the shrine of the murdered Thomas a Becket, the 
Tomb of Edward the Black Prince, ancient cloisters, a 
marvelous crypt, and tombs of archbishops and bishops 
from the sixth century. Nearly all the Kings of England 
have taken part in solemn ceremonies in Canterbury Cathe- 
dral. Sixteen miles farther on we come to Dover, with its 
high chalk cliffs and ancient feudal castle-fortress. From 
the top of the walls there is a magnificent view of the 
French and English coasts, with Calais in the blue distance 
before you and the green vales of Kent behind. In the 
narrow strait below was fought the first great battle of the 
Armada. No sea-view in all England rivals this narrow 
historic expanse of water. 

Do you prefer the river, or perchance a coaching trip? 
During the summer season there are delightful "combined" 
trips whereby you can leave behind the dust of London and 
travel luxuriously by rail to North Cornwall and North 
Devon, thence coaching through the rugged West Country, 
famous for its picturesque views of land and sea. 

The great beauty of Enghsh railway travel is that it does 
not require very much time to go anywhere. Nor do you 
become tired, as on long trips in America or on the Conti- 
nent, for traveling in the English compartment railway 
coaches is very different in many ways, and always a novel 
and pleasant experience to an American. The English rail- 
way trains are very unlike those we are accustomed to see 
on American railways. The mammoth engine with its in- 
significant little smokestack like a cigarette, its cab wide 
open to the air and the driver and stoker apparently at the 
meicy of the elements; the long line of passenger coaches, 
divided into small compartments, each with its separate 
door to the platform ; the uniformed and always courteous 
"guards" — everything impresses an American at first sight 



2o6 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

as deliciously new and strange. The passenger coaches of 
each train are divided into three Classes, the railway fare 
being graded according to each Class. The Second Class 
coaches, while less luxuriously furnished than the First 
Class, are very comfortable, but not nearly so well patron- 
ized as the Third Class, which in England are quite equal 
to most First Class cars on the Continent, both as to fur- 
nishing and comfort. The Third Class coach of England 
is, however, not to be compared with its fellow across the 
Channel, wherein the seats are not cushioned and the pas- 
sengers are of a class impossible of long-sustained associa- 
tion. In England the great majority of well-to-do people 
travel Third Class, as much on account of the real comfort 
as of the lower price. "Good Heavens, why do you travel 
Third Class ?" gasped a fashionable Londoner to an equally 
fashionable but more sensible acquaintance alighting from 
the Brighton special. "Because there's no Fourth," she 
gurgled happily. However right this may be in England, 
however, it would be all wrong on the Continent, where a 
Fourth Class does exist, being mainly used for transporting 
soldiers, peasantry and grimy sons of toil. Nearly every 
English train has private compartments reserved for ladies 
only, designed primarily for ladies traveling alone, and into 
which no male biped is permitted to hardly even look. It 
is proper to add that one such look is usually quite enough, 
for these sacred precincts are usually monopolized by 
ancient virgins with a vinegary distaste for mere man, or 
timid old ladies subject to "sinking spells" whenever the 
train starts. Most of the modern railway carriages are 
heated in winter-time, though many are not, and in the 
latter case passengers are forced to depend on shawls, rugs 
and "foot-warmers" — long flat tins filled with hot water, 
which are shoved in by the railway guard at occasional 
stops. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 207 

Baggage checks are practically unknown in England. 
Your trunk, or bag, travels in the "van" and at the ter- 
minus is shot out upon the platform into a general heap, 
where each passenger selects his particular belongings, 
which a porter wheels off to the nearest cab. In the face 
of such an almost criminally loose system, and the apparent 
opportunity offered for theft, the amount of lost or stolen 
baggage is surprisingly small. Should you desire, however, 
you can pay a small fee and ''register" your baggage to 
its destination, receiving in return a scrap of paper with 
the necessary details laboriously written thereon by the 
baggage master. This apparent survival of some old 
Roman custom saves the traveler much worry and annoy- 
ance, and more nearly approaches the American brass- 
check method. But do you know that your trunks can be 
checked from your hotel or residence in New York directly 
to your hotel or residence in London for the amazingly low 
charge of fifty cents each by simply notifying the New 
York agency of either of the great English railways, or 
Cook's ? Your keys will be forwarded in a separate sealed 
envelope to the London agent, who will have the baggage 
examined by the Customs and thereupon forwarded (with 
keys in another sealed package to your terminal address. 
Think of the trouble and expense thus avoided. Why, it is 
cheaper than the New York cab- fare ! And on your return 
you can check from London in the same manner. 

All "hand-luggage" is free on English railways, and as a 
natural result most English travelers carry with them a 
large bag, or valise, that can be stowed away in the capa- 
cious overhead racks in the passenger coaches, and handed 
to a porter on arrival, or even carried personally. The 
enormous size of some of these infant Saratogas that travel 
as innocent "hand-luggage," would put even the "head- 
luggage" of an Italian emigrant to shame. If you have 



2o8 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

ever seen an aged Italian woman carrying on her head a 
load of furniture tied up in a sheet, you will know what I 
mean. But the average Englishman will incommode his 
fellow-passengers and act as his ovv^n porter besides, to save 
tuppence. 

However, we were just taking a train for a little run 
through the West of England. While occupied in compar- 
ing notes on English and American travel, our well- 
appointed railway carriage has been speeding along over a 
solid-ballasted roadbed winding through a pretty landscape 
of smugly-trimmed hedges, woodlands, meadows and farms, 
until lo, we have come to ancient Salisbury, with its ex- 
quisite Gothic-spired Cathedral, the highest in England. 
Nearby is Stonehenge and the mystic stone circles of 
Druidic origin. After passing Fordham Abbey, we cross 
the border into "Glorious Devon," with Exeter just beyond. 
Here is that other famous Cathedral, so exceptional in its 
decoration, with stately Norman towers and superb octagon. 
The curfew is still rung every night on Great Peter Bell, 
as an "early to bed" hint, with possible dangers of a bogie- 
man. Here also is the quaint Elizabethan Guildhall, with 
the romantic ruins of Rougemont Castle, founded by Wil- 
liam the Conqueror and mentioned in "Richard III." Old 
Exeter was the scene of hard and terrible fighting in the 
Norman era and Middle Ages. 

Beyond Exeter you may mount your "coach and four" 
for a glorious ride through King Arthur's Land to Ply- 
mouth and Torquay, or on to lovely Clovelly, Ilfracombe 
and even Penzance. Clovelly is a wonderful little fishing 
village beloved of artists, with a quaint uphill main street 
built like a stone staircase, queer donkey carriers and won- 
drous coast views in gray and sapphire. All about this 
Eden country are the beautiful valleys, luxuriant lanes, 
wild moorlands and picturesque Old- World villages for 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 209 

which Devonshire is famed. Painters and poets have rev- 
elled in the summer color-glories of a sea and sky along this 
favored coast. Gainesborough, Shelley, Coleridge and 
Southey were all frequent visitors here. The Doone Val- 
ley, familiar to readers of "Lorna Doone," is within easy 
reach, and farther on ^t Penzance is the centre of the Cor- 
nish Riviera, where frost and snow are said to be almost 
unknown. This is probably an English joke, however; at 
all events it is regarded as a myth and a fable and even 
something stronger by those who have experienced Eng- 
lish winter weather. The airy apparel worn by the Gil- 
bertian 'Tirates," and more especially that of the chorus, 
in the well-known opera, is not the prevailing style in Pen- 
zance, for even summer wear. I learned this fact by en- 
quiry among the villagers, some of whom were quite rude 
in their replies. 

Incidentally, an Englishman with whom I was conversing 
one day made such wondrous hash of pronouncing certain 
American names that it was impossible not to sit up and 
take notice. Here was a man who really ought to have 
known better, but didn't, because he had been taught his 
pronunciation in an English school, just exactly as his chil- 
dren are being taught today. He was referring casually to 
Illinois, which he pronounced 'Tllinwah." Then he men- 
tioned a place that sounded like Dagger-tor. I said, "What 
language would that be on the map — Dutch?" ''Fancy," 
said he, "why it's one of your own States !" It proved to be 
Dakota. When I gently but firmly endeavored to disabuse 
his mind of these and some other fallacies regarding Amer- 
ica, he complained bitterly of the rankness and impurity of 
American names generally, and the particular criminality 
of expecting Englishmen to pronounce them perfectly. 
Whereupon I obtained a map of England and pointed out 
to him certain names thereon, after which the subject of 



210 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

both American and English nomenclature was dropped by 
mutual consent, with the honors fairly even. In loving 
memory of that conversation, I have been re-examining a 
map of Britain and submit herewith what appears to be an 
excellent case of circumstantial evidence. 

What would you think, for instance, of Borrowash and 
Matlock Bath, Whatstandwell and Hitchin, Oxenhope, Ox- 
ted, Dove Holes and Frog Hall — all good old English 
names that smack of the countryside and the Englishman's 
passion for a "tub." Then if you fancy double names there 
are Bell Busk, Kirby Muxloe, Horsted Keynes, Shepton 
Mallet, Lyme Regis, Chorlton-cum-Hardy (good old 
Caesar!), Bury St, Edmunds, Stoke Poges, Barrow-in- 
Furness (a singular place for a barrow, moke or Shadrach 
coster), Cheadle Hulme, Penny Compton, Sutton Coldfield 
and Broom Junction — each of them an illuminating head- 
light to warn posterity into simpler and less tangled paths. 
But there are others, and here is a little group that appar- 
ently might bear watching — Potter Heigham, Chipping 
Norton, Marsh Gibbon and (whisper it!) Fenny Stratford, 
and last, but evidently not least, Walton-in-the-Naze. It 
reads like a newspaper story, all suspicious characters and 
a mystery at the bottom. For whatever happened to Wal- 
ton-in-the-Naze certainly ruined the spelling of it, if not 
the shape, and possibly it is wise not to enquire into causes 
or reason. Consider instead whether any possible extenuat- 
ing circumstances can exist for such sweet violets of etymol- 
ogy as Bletchley, Shanklin, Rowsley, Bognor, Yeovil, Work- 
sop, Thirsk, Wigan, Bootle and Diggle. The last three 
jewels sound like an East End law firm, and suggest the 
dying struggle of Bill Sykes, pendant from the roof. 

But it is in Wales that "gems of purest ray serene" are 
found — names productive of lockjaw and dental expenses, 
large, generous, double-d'd and hyphenated extravaganzas 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 211 

of spelling and pronunciation both. Observe these sample 
exotics, carefully culled from a garden tropically luxuriant 
in consonants, diphthongs, and peculiarly shaped alphabetical 
orchids that only grow in a Welsh atmosphere: Ynysddu 
(why wouldn't one d do?), Aberystwyth, Penwyllt, Llan- 
elly, Ynys (pronounced In-nes), Perrhyn, Pwllheli (mean- 
ing probably a noise like a Chinese laundry), Nantclwyd, 
Llanrhaiadr, and also such lofty skyscrapers as Pantyffyn- 
non, Pontnewydd, Pehclawd, Tal-y-lynn, Llanwrtyd, Ma- 
chynlleth and Bettws-y-Coed. I do not know how they 
swear in Welsh, but it certainly looks easy. 

It seems almost like painting the lily and also adding 
insult to injury, but there are nevertheless a few deserving 
Scotch candidates fairly clamoring for recognition, such as 
Killicrankie, Kingussie, Dalwhinnie, Blairgowrei, Coupar 
Aegus, Arbroarth, Auchmacoy, Old Meldrum, Balquhidder, 
Ballachulish, Auchterardes, and others equally shy and 
modest. Ireland, too, can muster quite a formidable array, 
which, for the sake of the proofreader, are omitted. The 
case appears to be amply proven, however, and Britain, as 
in other respects, should not be boastful of her pulchritude 
in this regard. 'Tllinwah" is sufficiently avenged. 

Given a bright, sunny day, there is no prettier jaunt than 
from London to Windsor, either by rail or by boat. From 
Putney to Mortlake is the famous racing-water of the 
Cambridge and Oxford crews. Then Richmond, with its 
quaint stone-arched bridge, its Deer Park, old Royal Palace, 
the thirty-mile view from Richmond Terrace, the Great 
Park, and at its entrance the renowned ''Star and Garter" 
Inn, delightful resort of Royalty and commoner alike, 
famous for its dinners and glorious views of the Thames 
valley. The river is at its best from here onward; hun- 
dreds of punts, boats and launches dot its placid surface 
or peep coyly from the fringed and overhanging banks. A 



212 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

little beyond is Hampton Court, a Royal Palace built orig- 
inally by Cardinal Wolsley, resting like a wonderful river- 
garden within a forest park and well-beloved by English 
and Americans alike. From Marlowe to Windsor is an 
exquisite river trip, passing Cleveden, the former magnifi- 
cent residence of the Duke of Westminster, now owned by 
William Waldorf Astor. 

Windsor, with its stately Park and great Royal Castle, 
has been for centuries the home of English sovereigns, 
dating from Edward the Third. The State Apartments, 
St. George's Chapel, and Round Tower, with the Albert 
Memorial Chapel and Castle Terraces, are open to the 
public when the King is not in residence. Directly across 
the river is the historic Eton College and its famous play- 
ing-fields. 

This lovely river-trip should be prolonged to Oxford, the 
seat of Magdalen, Christ Church, Merton, and other col- 
leges dear to the masculine English heart. Near by is 
Blenheim Palace, which for a score of years has been pre- 
sided over by American Duchesses. The money of the 
Duchess Lillian, formerly Mrs. Hammersley, of New York, 
helped pay for many of the much-needed repairs under the 
former Duke. The present Duchess, formerly Miss Con- 
suelo Vanderbilt, of New York, also brought such an enor- 
mous dowry to her husband that her son, the Marquis of 
Blaedford, will some day be perhaps the richest Duke in 
the House of Lords. His only rival will be His Grace of 
Westminster, or possibly His Grace of Roxburghe, also 
married to an American, formerly Miss Goelet, of New 
York. 

England is an earthly Paradise for negroes, and the col- 
ored man is promptly accepted not only as a man but lit- 
erally as a brother also. No question is raised regarding 
color, smell or social status — he is clasped to the bosom of 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 213 

John Bull and rapturously introduced to the family. Well- 
dressed negroes walking with respectable and well-dressed 
white women are frequent spectacles, and social courtesies 
may properly be extended to a negro in England which 
would result in ostracism of the hostess from all white so- 
ciety if perpetrated in America. In these matters the Eng- 
lish people seem to be literally color-blind. I have seen the 
Royal box at Covent Garden occupied by members of the 
Royal family, with the opposite box occupied by negroes, 
and they may frequently be found in the best seats at any 
theatre or music-hall, escorting either white women or those 
of their own color. At the popular restaurants negroes are 
welcome guests and apparently possess a weird attraction 
to the white Continental waiters, who anticipate every want 
and frequently extend to them preference over white pa- 
trons. To an American, and especially to a Southerner, 
such an exhibition is simply revolting, yet not more so 
than the general indifference displayed by the English pub- 
lic. To them the negro is apparently an agreeable person- 
ality, possessing an especially mysterious attraction to the 
English female. The young English woman who would 
elevate her sensitive nose at the thought of being seen in 
public with one of her father's honest, middle-class clerks, 
cheerfully accepts the negro, not only as a social equal, but 
as a very badly-used and misunderstood proposition in 
the United States. I have heard people of the best and 
highest standard in England declaim indignantly against the 
whole American population for lynching or burning negroes 
at the stake for certain crimes, without regard to the slower 
processes of law. "Why burn and torture?" they argue. 
''You Americans are savages!" "Was it less savage for 
Englishmen to blow Sepoys from the mouths of cannon 
after the Indian Mutiny, as a deterrent example? Even 
as a Sepoy believes that the spirit of a dismembered body 



214 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

cannot attain to Paradise, so the superstitious negro believes 
that whoever perishes by fire will burn forever in torment," 
I reply, "And were his white victim one of your own family 
or friends, sir, you would be in the front rank of avengers 
instead of preaching mercy for a fiend. Only by such 
prompt and terrible punishment for these crimes has the 
South been made safe for unprotected white women. You 
will find the same answer written in your own history 
abroad." 

"The fact that a few members of the colored race have 
risen above the general brute level is no criterion that the 
mass is to be either trusted or respected. The radical dif- 
ference of race traits will always serve as a barrier against 
the mingling of white and black on the same social plane — 
the races are not homogeneous and can never assimilate. 
Unlike that of the American Indian, the negro race is not 
diminishing; when the red man shall have vanished from 
the Western Hemisphere, the negro will have multiplied 
ten-fold. In America the negro is theoretically free and 
equal with the white man, but is kept in his proper sec- 
ondary place, partly by custom and partly by force of cir- 
cumstances. South of a certain geographical limit, he is 
not permitted to enter public conveyances or places of 
amusement, but rides in separate or "Jim Crow" cars, and 
in a theatre sits upstairs in the "nigge? heaven," apart from 
the white audience. How different the reception accorded 
the colored brother in England, where he struts in well- 
dressed and apparently conscious superiority, a shining 
mark for English admiration and American amusement. 
It has been suggested that herein lies an easy solution of 
the American negro problem, it being simply a matter of 
emigration of the colored brethren from the United States 
to England, a solution which would doubtless meet with 
entire satisfaction from both Americans and Afro-Ameri- 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 215 

cans, and ensure the latter a cordial and sympathetic recep- 
tion by the same John Bull who not so very many years ago 
was enslaving and selling their South African progenitors. 
But that is another story, and possibly embarrassing. 

The natural result of all this cordial showering of Eng- 
lish hospitality is that the negro takes what is so freely ten- 
dered. Although some slight distinction is made between 
the Afro-American type of negro and a native of India or 
the West Indies, the Englishman draws no rigid line of 
demarkation, while to the American ''all coons look alike" 
and are about equally objectionable. 

The American Indian, as exemplified in the so-called 
"Wild West" shows, is likewise a human magnet socially 
to many English people. It was a common sight during 
the old days of the original "Wild West" exhibition in 
England, and more recently in New Brighton during the 
palmy days of a mediocre cowboy and Indian show, to see 
white girls promenading the street with uncouth, repulsive 
and gaily-blanketed Indians, apparently entirely oblivious 
of the social chasm between the two races. One of the 
most popular girls in New Brighton was a young squaw- 
member of the visiting troupe, who was constantly sur- 
rounded, whether on the water-front promenade or at the 
skating-rink parties, by an especially attentive coterie of 
the best young men of that distinctively English society. 
In America, the "squaw-man" and the white wife of a negro 
have about the same social status, if any, but in England 
both Injun and coon seem to possess an equally fatal 
charm for English people. The social limit is drawn 
apparently at the Chinaman, and you will meet only polite 
pity and deprecation if you allow your "American pre- 
judice" for the negro to show itself. 

It is not so very long ago that the London Standard, a 
leading publication, printed a solemn warning against "im- 



2i6 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

migration of the blacks," so-called, based upon the investi- 
gations of a London detective agency and bringing to notice 
what was termed an "invasion of England by negroes, es- 
pecially American, which has been steadily proceeding for 
several years.'' The report stated that "Englishmen's tra- 
ditional tolerance of the differences of color, race and 
creed has blinded them to the real danger now threatening 
them," and proceeds as follows : 

"London is the Paradise of the black man, and the American 
negro has discovered this fact. Every ship from the United 
States brings fresh arrivals to swell the large colony which is 
already here, where they are treated on an equal footing at the 
lodging-houses and sit at the same table with whites. For the 
first time in their lives, they are permitted to mix with white 
women on social equality. This has created a grave peril 
which is becoming worse every day." 

The Agency report draws an ugly picture of the negro 
character, and, referring to the Southern States of the 
United States, says: 

"Lynching seems to be the only way to prevent the whole- 
sale commission of crimes against womanhood by modern 
negroes, because fear is the sole restraining influence they 
know." 

Jesso ! 

The winter climate of England has already been re- 
ferred to, more or less disrespectfully, but there exists one 
literal ray of sunshine that pierces even the Channel fogs, 
Scotch mists and drizzling rains, which constitute this, to 
use an English term, really "beastly" portion of the year's 
calendar. It is the South Coast of England, called the 
"Sunshine Belt," "English Riviera," and other prettily de- 
scriptive names, and well deserves all the good words 




Crab Inn, Isle of Wig-ht 




One of England's War-Dogs, Portsmouth Dock-Yard 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 217 

bestowed upon it. There the winter climate is milder and 
more agreeable, the sun shines brightly two-thirds of the 
time instead of not at all, as in London, and under such 
conditions it is little wonder that thousands of well-to-do 
people leave the Northern Counties at the first touch of 
frost and hie them with the song-birds southward. Devon- 
shire, Hampshire and Kent are beautiful all the year round, 
and, like the southern coast of Wales, abound in delightful 
land and sea resorts. The Isle of Wight, a famous winter 
haven for invalids, lies but twenty minutes' sail across 
from Portsmouth, while Brighton, Eastbourne, Bourne- 
mouth and other charming English watering-places form a 
chain of coast attractions difficult to equal. With this de- 
lightful South Coast itself so very near, and palms and 
orange trees of the French Riviera and Spanish and Italian 
winter resorts only a day's journey from London, the 
amazing thing to an American is that so many English peo- 
ple of the leisure class, amply able to spend the winter 
elsewhere, remain uncomfortably at home not only through- 
out the whole wretched winter season, but even all their 
lives ! There are thousands of English people of ample 
means who have never been off the island itself, though all 
the Continent of Europe with treasures of every kind dear 
to the appreciative, lies directly at the door of England in 
almost irresistible proximity. These short-sighted ''stay- 
at-homes" spend at Bournemouth or Folkstone each year 
more than enough to take them comfortably through Hol- 
land, up the Rhine, and through Switzerland — a foreign trip 
sufficient to store one's mind with memories and pictures 
of everything from wooden sabots and whirling windmills 
to the sunset glories of Rhenish castles and the snowy 
Alpine range beyond. Everything Continental is so abso- 
lutely different from England — language, customs and peo- 
ple — such a complete and wonderful change of scene, so 



2i8 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

near and so delightfully easy of access, and yet compara- 
tively few of the English people ever leave their accustomed 
home-rut to travel ever so little into the great and won- 
derful world outside. Such are the people who marvel that 
Americans will travel thousands of miles across the ocean 
and part with huge sums of money to see lands and peoples 
that practically have little or no meaning to Britons. They 
live their little lives in their own little English groove, and 
are perfectly contented in their ignorance and sloth — nay, 
even proud of it ! 

Southampton and Portsmouth were always the Mecca and 
Medina of my youthful traveling aspirations, so far as 
England was concerned, partly because Dickens was born 
at Portsmouth and partly because the Pilgrims sailed from 
Southampton, closely followed by a certain great-ancestor 
of mine in 1638. Whether he was chased out on account 
of his piety, as the Pilgrims were, does not matter. He 
probably was. But my interest in seeing Southampton was 
not so much on his account, beyond a secret desire to set 
fire to it because of the unrighteous treatment accorded 
there to the original member of the Hills family. It was 
too late to get any satisfaction, however. Everyone re- 
sponsible for my early ancestor's religious difficulties had, 
I was told, since died, and as they were probably now re- 
gretting it every time they looked at the thermometer, I 
let it pass. 

Southampton has many interesting features, being an 
ancient seaport town and rich in old houses and quaint 
corners. Its distinguished feature today is the magnificent 
system of quays and docks for ocean liners. This is also 
the sacred spot where the Danish King Canute and his royal 
arm-chair narrowly escaped being carried out to sea during 
his historic experiment with a tide that continued rising in 
disobedience to his command. After the imperial retainers 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 219 

responsible for this practical joke got His Majesty back on 
dry land, they heard something drop, or, as his historian 
describes it, "his flattering courtiers received the famous 
royal rebuke." 

But despite all other attractions, my mind kept returning 
to the sailing of the Mayflozuer from this oldentime water- 
front, in 1620, that momentous date for Old as well as for 
New England. It must have been a grand and stupendous 
sight when that noble leviathan, loaded to the topsail-yards 
with old-fashioned furniture and peak-hatted Pilgrims, 
moved majestically out into the stream with snowy canvas 
spread and course laid true and straight for Plymouth 
Rock. I saw the white foam curling underneath the 
"Standing Room Only" sign nailed to the bow, and an 
occasional mislaid spinning-wheel or gilt-framed mirror 
bobbing in the wake astern. I beheld in fond imagination 
the multitude of intrepid Pilgrims clustered in the shrouds, 
the deck piled mountain high with old-fashioned mahogany 
furniture and garnished with clock-reels, flax-winders, spin- 
ning-wheels, three-legged stools and high-backed chairs, 
while passing breezes wafted back to the cruel opposition 
on the dock the sad sweet strains of Gospel hymns. I could 
hear the stately, endless ranks of "grandfather's clocks" 
striking the hour in one grand farewell chorus, everybody's 
clock apparently outdoing everybody else's clock, while loud 
above the din rose the hoarse voice of the Captain shouting 
back an order for more Colonial furniture by the next boat. 
It was an occasion fraught with stupendous moment to 
future millions of both freeborn and imported American 
citizens as that gallant ship faded out into the Solent, pro- 
pelled by Fate and following the finger of Destiny pointing 
to the New World. Gee, it was a great day ! 

The following notice on the dock-wall attracts the atten- 
tion of American visitors : 



220 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

On the 15th August, 1620, from near this West Quay of South- 
ampton, the famous Mayflower began her voyage, carrying the little 
company of Pilgrim Fathers (including John Alden of Southamp- 
ton) who were destined to be the founders of the New England 
States of America. 

Incidentally, there were also some Pilgrim Mothers on 
board, a fact apparently overlooked in the notice, but this 
omission will no doubt be duly rectified when it is called 
to the attention of the militant English "suffragettes." 

There is something mysterious about the sailing of the 
Mayflower. She apparently departed several times on that 
memorable trip to America, and from several different 
places. Frinstance : 

According to the inscription at the Southampton dock, 
the vessel left from Southampton, on August 15th. 

According to ''Montgomery's American History, the 
Mayflower sailed from Southampton on August 6th, then 
came back and made a fresh start on September i6th, six 
weeks later, sailing from Plymouth. 

According to the "Encyclopsedia Brittannica," the ship 
sailed from Southampton ''in August" (which is a trifle in- 
definite), then returned and started all over again on Sep- 
tember 6th, but the port of her second departure is not 
mentioned. 

After such a series of "farewell performances" and the 
attendant discomforts of a winter voyage across the Atlan- 
tic in a furniture van, yet another large and juicy lemon 
was handed to the Pilgrims on arrival, for, albeit they 
held passage tickets to sunny Virginia, they were landed on 
the stern and rock-bound coast of Massachusetts, with no 
railway facilities for continuing the journey to Old Point 
Comfort. Whereupon they philosophically settled down 
and developed that race of sturdy Yankees which one hun- 
dred and fifty years later made a teapot of Boston Harbor 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 221 

and tied permanent Gordian knots in the tail of a highly 
indignant British lion. This stupefying conquest is ex- 
plained and accounted for in England today on the ground 
that the victorious Americans were in reality Englishmen! 

Dr. Watts, the great writer of church hymns, was born 
in Southampton in 1674, half a century or so too late to 
have supplied the Pilgrims with up-to-date concert material. 
It is generally understood, however, that no blame attaches 
to Dr. Watts for this apparent oversight and his subsequent 
career appears to have been entirely blameless and exem- 
plary. 

There is a charming old Abbey at Beaulieu, just beyond 
Southampton, that is said to have been founded by King 
John. The principal feature of interest there is the local 
pronunciation of the name Beaulieu. It is called by the 
natives "Bewley," which is presumably the proper way of 
pronouncing the name — in England. To reach Beaulieu, 
we were told that it was "a three-mile walk over a sandy 
road from the boat-landing, and follow the telegraph wire." 
In view of our inability to walk on a telegraph wire, and 
a lack of enthusiasm regarding the six-mile round-trip over 
a sandy road, we cheerfully omitted "Bewley" from our 
route. But we heard it pronounced ! 

On the other side of Southampton is Winchester, birth- 
place of Alfred the Great, and fairly reeking with antiquity 
and the lore of ages. Egbert, the first King of England, 
was crowned here in the great fog of 827, to which was 
due his famous English witticism, "Be sure you crown the 
right man." If you fail to laugh at this moss-grown fable 
in Winchester, you are guilty of lese majeste. But the his- 
tory of this "city of Kings'' ante-dates this fable by many 
centuries. The grand old Norman Cathedral is its chief 
attraction today, and has been added to, century after cen- 
tury, until now it includes every kind of architecture from 



222 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

Norman to early Rennaissance. You are shown the Tomb 
of Wilham Rufus and the fatal arrow-head which fell out 
from his bones when the coffin was opened some years ago. 
There, too, are the sarcophagi of the Saxon Kings, and 
enough other objects of interest in that old Saxon city to 
occupy a month of sight-seeing and subsequent reflection. 

The crowning glory of Nature in this part of Britain is 
the New Forest, an ancient royal hunting demesne com- 
prising a wonderful expanse of woodland glades and 
reaches of park-land, with masses of huge beeches so dense 
at times as to suggest actual darkness. This wooded scen- 
ery is of unsurpassed beauty, some of the great trees being 
more than a thousand years old. The New Forest is about 
one hundred miles in extent, being some twenty miles long 
by about twelve at the widest part. In one of the lovely 
glades is the famous Rufus Stone, a low pillar marking the 
spot where the second Norman King was slain by the arrow 
of Walter Tyrrell. How anyone could commit murder in 
such a veritable temple of Nature as this magnificent forest 
park, is inconceivable and shows a turgidity of character 
hopeless of redemption. I do not remember what hap- 
pened to this Tyrrell afterward, but I could not help 
hoping that he was duly and properly boiled in oil, or slowly 
and carefully skinned, or otherwise painfully and perma- 
nently removed from his mistaken sphere of human use- 
fulness. 

Elsewhere in the Forest is the pretty Lyndhurst Church, 
with its beautiful altar-piece, "The Ten Virgins," by Lord 
Leighton. But not all the virgins of merry England, red- 
cheeked or grey-headed, pictured or alive, could entice my 
soul away from contemplation of those majestic forest 
monarchs whose close-leaved branches darkened the noon- 
day sun, making the cooling shade and emerald turf be- 
neath a glad Elysium of rest and peace for mind and body 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 223 

both. The silence of these forest depths is awesome and 
profound — even the birds are hushed as in some dread and 
mysterious Presence — the cities and haunts of Man fade 
farther and farther away, and into the soul steals some- 
thing akin to reverence for these grave and silent giants 
that have stood a thousand years of storm and bid fair to 
stand a thousand more. To lie outstretched upon the velvet 
sward, and look upward into those dark-green caverns 
above ; to follow the great branches leading from the mighty 
trunk and ever multiplying while mounting upward to the 
sun ; to mark one by one the scars and ravages of centuries 
upon the savage frontlets of those warrior kings — all this 
brings a deep and abiding content that steeps one's inmost 
soul in restful peace. 

In yet another way the spirit of the forest manifests 
itself, and to him who sits entranced upon an English coach 
behind four regulation English coach-horses and rides 
through miles of shadowy forest-aisles of this great out-of- 
door Cathedral of Nature, under the arching beeches and 
along charming woodland drives — to him shall be vouch- 
safed the memory of a day that though he live a hundred 
years can never be forgotten. 

I quote from a letter which gives a bird's-eye view of 
what the South Coast looks like to an American girl : 

We are spending a few days at Southsea, the court-end of Ports- 
mouth. It is good to see sunshine again after weeks and weeks of 
London atmosphere, which is composed of fog, smoke and rain-water. 
The beautiful Isle of Wight is directly opposite and all about us 
are lovely sea-coast resorts. We have been to Cowes, the quaint 
little town on the Isle of Wight where the famous annual yacht 
races are held, and to Osborne (spell it with a u in England), the 
favorite residence of Queen Victoria and where she died. We have 
sailed up and down the famous Spithead anchorage of the British 
war fleet, and visited the old Garrison Church at Portsmouth, where 
the soldiers march in with band and drums for Sunday service, and 



224 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

where we were escorted into one of the pews reserved for officers 
because Daddy used to wear a sword himself in America and 
knows the Major in command here. We have visited the funny 
old streets and byways of the very oldest part of Portsmouth, where 
Charles Dickens was born, the Duke of Buckingham assassinated, 
and from which Nelson sailed out to sink the French fleet at Tra- 
falgar. We have been aboard the historic old Victory, lying honor- 
ably at anchor here in the inner harbor for the rest of her days, 
and have stood on the very spot where the great naval hero died. 
We have strolled along the beautiful Marine Promenade and beach 
and listened to the military bands playing on the Pier, and have 
seen the sham battles between the warships and torpedo boats at 
night, and the target practice of the big cruisers by day, and the 
regiments that are forever at drill on the parade ground or march- 
ing up the water front. We have been shown all the objects of 
interest and met ever so many nice people. On Tuesday we are 
invited to an elegant garden-party at Arundel Castle, the residence 
of the Duke of Norfolk, for we are "intimate friends of an intimate 
friend" of the Duke's brother. Lord Talbot, and next week we are 
invited to go aboard the Royal Yacht some day when the King 
isn't there? Isn't it lovely? We were at Bournemoiith for a week — 
such a charming place, with thick woods behind and the ocean in 
front, and glorious sea-bathing. The women wear the frumpiest 
bathing-suits you ever saw, and the men — well, the least said the 
better. The more I see of some people the better I like my dog. 
But of course that doesn't apply to ever3^one. We are to spend the 
Fourth of July on the Isle of Wight — no, not to escape the noise, 
for the Fourth is the quietest day in England — but Daddy wants 
to celebrate where the English fleet can hear him. Isn't it awful?" 

The story of that Fourth of July celebration is best left 
untold. It only shows what a little rocket and some red fire 
on a deserted beach can do toward waking up five miles of 
war-ships and an army of English constabulary, and I shall 
always regret that no official time-record exists of my hun- 
dred-yard dash up the lane. The English navy is appar- 
ently a very sensitive proposition. At least that was the im- 
pression that I received. They are probably watching that 
mouse-hole yet. 




Bird's-eye View at Isle of Wight 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 225. 

The Portsmouth navy-yard, or "dock-yard," as it is 
called, is quite a large affair, both in area and naval equip- 
ment. Thousands of workmen are continually passing in or 
out, and there are always several lead-colored, wicked- 
looking cruisers and battle-ships moored alongside the 
great work-shops undergoing refitting or repairs. Sub- 
marines and torpedo-boats are almost as common as row- 
boats in the inner harbor and attract no special notice. We 
were invited by a prominent local resident to visit the dock- 
yard with himself and daughter, and accepted the invita- 
tion. After passing through the great entrance-gates, we 
were ushered into a small guard-house and requested to sign 
the visitors book. When this formality had been completed, 
the tall Sergeant who had charge of the party glanced over 
our signatures, beheld the fatal words "New York" proudly 
inscribed thereafter, and turning to me, said, "Are you a 
Henglish subject, sir?" 

"Not on your life," said I. "Look at the book." 

"I 'ave looked at the book, sir," he rejoined, "and I am 
sorry to say that you cannot henter the dock-yard." 

My friend started forward to expostulate, but the Ser- 
geant was firm as his own Gibraltar. "No aliens are al- 
lowed to visit the dock-yard, sir," was all the satisfaction 
to be obtained from his stolid front. 

"We will go to the Commandant," said my friend, and 
while the ladies waited like Peri at the gates, we went in to 
consult the oracle and read him the Riot Act. The Com- 
mandant was away, but his private secretary received us 
with all the honors of war, and explained at great length the 
regulations, proving that the Sergeant was quite right. 
"Aliens" were tabooed. 

"Do you call Americans aliens?" I enquired. 

"Certainly," he replied, "all who are not British sub- 
jects — all foreigners — are aliens." 



226 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

"Are not the Japanese aliens also?" I said. 

"Well, yes, in a sense they are. But they are our allies." 

"But, my dear sir," I protested, "you bar out Americans, 
whom you claim to be your own flesh and blood, yet admit 
the Japanese without question and permit them to inspect 
everything desired." 

Once more the parrot-talk. "The Japanese are our 
allies." 

"Yes, they are your allies to-day. But let me tell you 
something. Your nation is now educating the Japanese in 
modern war-methods, and they in turn are educating the 
Chinese, consummating thereby the 'Yellow Peril' to the 
white race. The day is coming, perhaps, when the Japs, 
your present affectionate allies, will come knocking at the 
gates of England as enemies, having learned all of modern 
warfare that England is able to teach, and mark my words, 
when that day shall come, England will entreat the help of 
America in defending the very dock-yards and arsenals 
from which Americans today are barred as 'aliens.' I hope, 
sir, you will have become more hospitable to us before that 
time arrives." 

We went away, my English friend greatly mortified with 
our experience. I was somewhat nettled and made up my 
mind that I would get into that dock-yard now, anyhow! 
I had not cared very much about it previously, having vis- 
ited other dock-yards equally interesting, but after having 
been called an 'alien' in my dear old mother-country, I de- 
sired to hand them back a grape-fruit in return for the 
lemon. Accordingly I got in touch with the American Em- 
bassy at London, gave the high sign, stated my case, and 
was handed this bunch of rhetorical green grapes by the 
Ambassador himself, "It is useless. The law is very strict 
regarding entrance to English dock-yards. I could not even 
obtain admission myself, not being a British subject." 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 227 

That settled it. I said, "All right ; I shall wait until some 
day when the Japs come around to that old dock-yard on 
war business, and then go in along with them ! And I hope 
that private secretary will be there to see *us aliens' wrap 
the British lion in a Japanese kimono and run him round 
his dock-yard ahead of a bunch of firecrackers." 

The moral is obvious. As straws show which way the 
wind blows, so little things like this betray the yellow under 
the English red. If Americans are regarded by the English 
Government as "aliens," what degree of confidence can be 
placed in the constantly reiterated assurances of blood-rela- 
tionship and the loyal grasp of "hands across the sea?" 

British sentiment hostile to America has been more re- 
cently shown during the threatened complications between 
Japan and the United States over the California alien land 
law, and the attitude taken then by the London newspapers 
is not at all encouraging of the spirit of brotherhood that 
the two English-speaking nations are expected to maintain 
before the world in the celebration of one hundred years 
of peace. There is a grim comedy in a peace celebration 
with a nation that openly exhibits its jealous dislike through 
the medium of its press. Witness, for instance, the attitude 
of the London Saturday Review in May, 19 13, which stated 
editorially that the Japanese dispute could hardly be settled 
by diplomacy, and predicted that the Philippines would fall 
into the hands of the Japanese as easily as they fell into 
the hands of Admiral Dewey, and, further, that Japan 
would be able to make her temporary command of the Pa- 
cific permanent, and to occupy Southern California and 
Oregon. "And then," said the London exponent of British 
journalism, "it is Great Britain's duty to stand aside, as she 
did in the Russo-Japanese war, for Japan will look to us to 
hold the ring;" or, in other words, to prevent interference 
with the desired downfall of America. It concludes : "The 



228 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

United States is working for the supremacy of the Pacific 
on lines as unfriendly to England as to Japan. Should she 
fall foul of Japan in the process, it is not for us to help her 
out to the injury of our ally." 

It is only another indication of the "yellow" under the 
(^ British red. As a matter of fact, boiled down to the very 
essence, the English have no love for America or Ameri- 
cans beyond their fervent adoration of American dollars, 
and whenever the English mask occasionally slips out of 
place, the same old perfidious Albion is disclosed behind, 
purple with suppressed envy and venom. Nor is this an 
idle expression of personal opinion, but a statement of fact 
supported by facts, known and thoroughly comprehended 
in all the chancellories of Europe. Yet England's only 
hope today, in case of war against her by a foreign power, 
lies in the moral if not active backing of the United States, 
and not only our ''holding the ring," but if necessary break- 
ing it ! It is a tidy question, as we say in Lunnon, isn't it ? 
But never mind. There is a fable concerning two He- 
brews who lunched at Delmonico's and were afterward be- 
wailing the high prices. "Dot man is a robber. I have to 
pay seventy-five cents for apple-pie and a cup of coflfee!" 
"Neffer mind, Ikey," said his friend, "Gott has punished 
dot Delmonico alreaty. I haf two of his silver spoons in 
mine pocket!" The same divine Providence which tempers 
the wind to the shorn Hebrew is dispensing retributive jus- 
tice to England, through the happy mediums of tea and in- 
toxicants. Not content with drinking tea at breakfast, din- 
''■' ner and supper, the entire British nation stops short about 
four o'clock every afternoon, and, dropping all other busi- 
ness, braces up on a cup of tea! At home or in the busy 
office, in factory or palace, when the mystic hour arrives 
everyone reaches for the teapot. To an American business 
man the spectacle of a tea-tray on an Englishman's office- 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 229 

desk in the middle of the afternoon is a revelation, and 
when he learns that not only is the "boss" indulging, but 
that the bookkeeper and typist are also making tea over 
the spirit-lamp outside during a temporary stoppage of all 
office work, the fact becomes a hilarious proposition. Im- 
agine ''down-town" New York stopping business every af- 
ternoon to drink tea ! Shades of Delmonico, the Savarin, 
Stewart, and the Astor House cafe ! Alas for the dry 
Martini, the soothing Manhattan, and the high-ball which 
cheers, whether or not it inebriates. Imagine the "Only 
William," author of the highest printed authority on cool- 
ing beverages, and skilled beyond his fellowmen in artistic 
combinations of liquid sunshine and ambrosia — imagine 
William making tea! God forbid. 

Yet for all its American popularity the real cocktail is 
comparatively unknown either in England or in Europe. 
There are sundry hotels and public resorts which profess 
to dispense American beverages, and proudly bear aloft 
the sign of relief yclept "American Bar;" but sign and 
beverages are alike delusions. Anything mixed in a glass 
is regarded as a cocktail by the benighted English barmaid, 
and Heaven pity the deluded partaker. The reason why 
Englishmen do not take kindly to this American specialty is 
probably due to its weird English compounding, which in- 
cludes stirring with what is known as a "swizzle-stick," and 
serving the dry Martini with a cherry and the Manhattan 
with an olive, exactly contrary to rule. It is little wonder, 
therefore, that the Englishman whose interior has been in- 
sulted and outraged by one or more of these nightmares, 
turns in his blindness to plain Scotch, "the whiskey of his 
forefathers," and to the national beverage — tea. He turns, 
whatever the reason, and the oceans of smoky Scotch that 
annually disappear down the capacious British gullet are 
only approached or equalled by the rivers and seas of both 



/& 



230 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

tea and whiskey that drench the interior recesses of the 
female population. Both beverages are deleterious to health, 
but their great-grandfathers, grandfathers and fathers, and 
all their corresponding female ancestors drank both tea 
and Scotch, and the custom being an English custom will 
therefore never be changed, interfered with or improved 
upon, for being English it is not capable of improvement. 
The life-saving clause to an Englishman lies in the addition 
of soda to his Scotch. A half-inch of Scotch whiskey, 
served in a large glass, then drowned and utterly obliterated 
by the addition of about seven inches of soda-water, will 
keep an Englishman occupied for half an hour before it 
is all absorbed. The spectacle of an American nonchalantly 
tossing down the Scotch and declining all but a small 
''chaser" of the soda is appalling to John Bull, forgetful of 
the fact that the Lord has provided him with only a tea- 
stomach. Even under such circumstances, however, John 
managed to spend in Great Britain and Ireland in 1910 a 
total of over $780,000,000 for alcoholic liquors, an increase 
of about $10,000,000 over the previous year. This increase 
was due to the increase in price, however, the actual con- 
sumption of spirits having been nearly 2,000,000 gallons 
less than in 1909. The decreased consumption was due en- 
tirely to the increased cost under the revised system of tax- 
ation, and not to any reform of either appetite or custom. 

The consumption of ale and beer in England is something 
amazing, considering the poor quality of the latter and the 
competition afforded by tea-shops and coffee-houses. 
These are temperance places, supplied with newspapers, 
draughts, cribbage-boards and other mild attractions, and 
are popular resorts for making appointments with custom- 
ers by that small class of business men who are without an 
office or business address. Within the ale and beer houses, 
commonly known as ''pubs," the space outside the bar- 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 231 

counter is divided by partitions into private slips, patron- 
ized by customers of both sexes. The spectacle presented 
in these places, especially at night, is astounding to anyone 
not accustomed to seeing women of the middle and lower 
classes drinking beer or gin in public. The malt liquors are 
of a common, cheap quality, and not to be compared for a 
moment with the nutritious German brews of Pilsner and 
Munschen. From the roof-seats of any passing omnibus, 
passengers can look directly down and into these brilliantly- 
lighted drinking-places, and the sight is not an improving 
one. But with the English working-class beer is practically 
in the same category as bread and butter, and such resorts 
flourish abundantly in every city and town, much of the 
scanty and hard-earned wages of the poorer classes find- 
ing its way to the till of the publican, who is often the 
nabob of the district. I saw in London, one afternoon, a 
funeral procession entering Kensal Green Cemetery, and 
was attracted by the expensive splendor of the high-plumed 
and flower-wreathed hearse, the sombre lace-tasselled trap- 
pings and tossing head-plumes of the jet-black horses, and 
the two following barouches piled with gorgeous satin-rib- 
boned wreaths, crosses, and other floral tributes. When 
the long procession of carriages had filed within the ceme- 
tery gates, I said to a bystander : "What prominent person- 
age is being buried here?" He looked surprised at my igno- 
rance. "Why, it's the son of the publican over 'ere ; that's 
'is funeral," he replied. I went away reflecting on that 
costly display — the money wrung from the poor in the pub- 
lic house neighborhood, and the shabby-genteel funerals 
common to the publican's customers in comparison with 
that of the publican's son. The public house will always 
be a cancer on the English body politic, but to the majority 
of the poorer class beer will always come before household 
necessaries. "Health, Fame and Fortune will pass away. 



22,2 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

but Thirst remains," saith the Oriental prophet. "Pint of 
four-'arf and a pot of bitter, miss," echoes the poor man, 
and the red-cheeked barmaid will draw the amber fluid 
with the foamy crest as long as the squiffy customer con- 
tinues to draw from his pocket the necessary coppers. His 
children may be in want of shoes, or even bread, but the 
public house attendants exhibit as little concern in that direc- 
tion as do the vultures of the pawnshops. The English poor 
are the poorest poor on earth in many respects, yet they 
pay into the ''pubs" the tremendous annual tribute men- 
tioned above, and then cheerfully go hungry. That amount 
would shoe and clothe all the poor children in Britain, and 
there is hardly a street in the poorer districts that is not full 
of these ragged and bare-foot little waifs. In no other civ- 
ilized country will you find children growing up under such 
vile conditions, — conditions for which the English public- 
house is directly responsible. 

As previously mentioned, the Fourth of July is always 
celebrated by Americans living abroad, the Nineteenth of 
April being next in importance. In London and many 
prominent Continental cities, the "American colony," as it 
is called, signalizes the "Glorious Fourth" by a banquet, 
where the American eagle flaps his joyous wings with the 
expatriates, temporary and permanent. The Fourth of 
July is one of those days upon which the English look with 
disfavor. Except concerning the days made glorious to 
them by British conquest, they are not a reminiscent people. 
They do not recollect victories won by the other nations. 
And it is a noticeable fact that in all the Art Galleries 
throughout Europe, no nation has placed anywhere any- 
thing on public view commemorative of any personal mili- 
tary or naval defeat. Everything is a "hurrah for our side." 
English text-books of modern history omit entirely, or skim 
very lightly over, our own Revolutionary War, stating 




A Bit of Hampton Court Gardens 




Hampton Court Palace 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 233 

merely that the American Colonies were "allowed to set up 
for themselves." Thousands of English people do not 
know that such a war ever occurred, nor are the school- 
children of to-day being very much enlightened. In the 
fair lexicon of English youth there are no such words as 
Lexington, Bunker Hill, or Yorktown. But Waterloo is 
there in Gothic capitals ! However, ample reparation is 
made in American text-books for English omission of per- 
tinent historical facts, so the proper mean is fairly main- 
tained. The shy English idea is excellently expressed in one 
of the topical music-hall songs, the point of which is in 
the concluding line : 

"I sye, Miss, there's a beetle in the pudding!" 
Says she, "I wish you'd 'old your jaw, 
Now every hother customer will want one. 
So what d'ye want to TALK abaht it for?" 

There are other forcible illustrations in the same ditty, 
particularly one referring to a too-talkative child, — a child 
endowed with neither diplomacy or foresight of conse- 
quences, whose curiosity as to the absence of hair on the 
coco of its avuncular relation results in a "smack in the 
napper" and Auntie's frantic expostulation: 

"Cawn't you see your Uncle doesn't loike it — 
Then what d'ye want to TALK abaht it for?" 

The composer of this musical gem missed a golden op- 
portunity. He should have added a verse about George 
Washington if he desired to see the audience foam over 
the foot-lights. Some people are awful touchy. 

The Englishman is insular in everything pertaining to 
himself or his island. He lives within his own circum- 
scribed area, large or small as his means permit, and re- 



234 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

sents any intrusion within his private domain, extending 
toward the pubhc about the same degree of cordial hos- 
pitality that the average farmer displays to an inquisitive 
polecat. Instead of fences or hedges many suburban estates 
have solid walls ten feet in height along the roadside, 
rendering it impossible for passers-by even to view the 
grounds within. These grounds are always "Strictly Pri- 
vate," and at intervals fairly bristle with warning signs, "No 
Trespassing Allowed." The deep religious awe with which 
these signs are regarded by the British public is something 
amazing to an American accustomed in his own land to the 
open and generous hospitality evidenced by frequent ab- 
sence of fence or boundary of any kind between or around 
suburban residences. The English law of private domain, 
however, draws a ''dead-line" around every man's habitat 
and grounds, beyond which no one may pass without the 
owner's permission, on pain of trespass. This is the law that 
transforms an Englishman's house into his "castle," and to 
the majority of the English population it is as sacred as 
the law prohibiting murder. Never in my life have I seen 
such respect paid to any law as the English people pay to 
this relic of feudal days, — the law of private domain. The 
only exceptions to the rule are burglars and Americans. 

There is a beautiful Country Club on the bank of the 
Thames, a few miles out of London, and between the Club 
grounds and the river is a tow-path, much frequented by 
visitors to this pretty suburb and affording a charming walk. 
The river comes nearly to the edge of this tow-path, and at 
certain times when the tide is unusually high, flows over the 
path and rises a foot or more against the Club wall, which 
thus acts as a temporary dam. One afternoon, as I sat en- 
joying a cigar and an American newspaper on the Club- 
House veranda, my attention was attracted to a commotion 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 235 

on the tow-path, where a number of people were running 
frantically back and forth, apparently in an endeavor to es- 
cape from something or somebody. I said to an attendant : 
''What is the trouble there?" 

"It's the 'igh tide, sir, has come hover the pawth, and the 
people cawn't get out either way." 

"Why don't they climb over the Club wall, then; there 
is no water on this side?" I enquired. 

"Climb hover the wall, sir? Gawd save us, they cawn't 
do that. These are private grounds, sir." 

"Private nothing! Here, you come with me and help 
those people over that wall ! By thunder, I never saw such 
a lot of sheep — standing there in the water, because some- 
body owns the dry land ! Come along, now ; hurry up !" 

"But the Club Directors, sir; there'll be a hawful row. 
Those people 'ave no right in the Club grounds, sir." 

I walked rapidly across the sloping lawn to the wall that 
divided the sacred Club grounds from the tow-path. Fifty 
people, mostly women and children, were helplessly ma- 
rooned there in water which had already risen nearly to 
their knees, and yet with only a four-foot wall between 
them and dry land, never dreaming for a moment of climb- 
ing over or even upon it; for that would be a most sacri- 
legious invasion of an Englishman's private domain ! 

Several Club members, with ladies, were standing on the 
Club lawn near the wall, regarding the spectacle with more 
or less amusement. On the tow-path an empty baby-carriage 
was floating toward the river tideway — the tears of the 
mother mingled with the crying of the rescued child. I 
shouted : 

"Why don't you men help those people ?" 

A fashionable Club member drawled in reply : "Aw, I say, 
the tide won't rise much higher." 

My answer was far from complimentary, but it stung 



236 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

three or four into offering assistance as I mounted the 
wall and told the woefully-drenched pleasure-seekers to 
come into the Qub grounds. They all looked very sur- 
prised, but several children were immediately lifted to the 
crest of the wall, and hands extended for women to mount 
likewise. Most of the men, however, remained standing in 
the water, manifestly afraid to intrude. Row-boats were 
now rapidly approaching the spot from a boat-letting es- 
tablishment farther down the river-bank. And thereupon 
was afforded a second object-lesson in British manners, for 
the boatmen charged every one of those drenched and res- 
cued unfortunates all the way from tuppence to sixpence 
for the service! 

There was no subsequent ''hawful row" in the Club Di- 
rectorate over my unprecedented and unlicensed action in 
admitting so many strange people within the hallowed 
Club precincts. It certainly was unprecedented, for I 
learned later that innocent pedestrians were marooned and 
drenched in exactly the same manner and exactly the same 
place once or twice every summer by some unusually high 
tide, and that the occurrence was regarded only as a trifling 
matter of amusement to the Club members, and of more or 
less profit to the boatmen, since there was no especial dan- 
ger and the people were "no class !" I will not dwell upon 
the frank American opinion which I somewhat freely ex- 
pressed, both regarding the discourtesy apparent on one 
side of the wall and the abject supineness exhibited on the 
other — an opinion which was regarded as ''most extraor- 
dinary" in view of the English law of private domain and 
the fact that '*an Englishman's house is his castle, sir !" 
I was also privately and impressively informed that if 
almost any other member of the Club had admitted "all 
those persons" to the Club premises, the result would have 
been a prompt request for that member's resignation ! The 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 237 

fact that I not only expressed no repentance, but even inti- 
mated that I should do exactly the same thing again, if 
necessary, was regarded as "very American — most extraor- 
dinary and unaccountable." However, not one of those 
rescued people even said "Thank you," and, principally 
because of such ingratitude, I will say here, confidentially, 
that next time I will cheerfully assist in drowning the whole 
lot. 

All of which brings us naturally and easily to consider- 
ation of the following news item, carefully and tenderly 
culled from the columns of an English periodical whose 
editor was apparently too astounded to even comment on it : 

"It is proposed to erect a monument to George Washington in 
Westminster Abbey, funds to be raised by subscription throughout 
the British Empire." 



238 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

The following design for such a memorial is respectfully- 
submitted, in view of certain historic facts : 



THREE 
Cheers for 
Uni ve r sal 
Peace, three 
Cheers for 
Concord too. 
Let's grip 
The hands 
Across the 
Sea, let's 
Pledge the 
Genial Amity 
Which gives our George 
His due. Where once 
They longed his neck to 
Wring, his praises now 
They loudly sing, and 
Soon a marble shaft they'll fling. 
On high for his renown. And on 
This column, pure and white. 
These words, of course, they'll 
Then indite, And sign them with a dove. 



In memory of that dear old time, 

When up a tree he made us climb. 

To George of Yorktown, name sublime. 

This shaft we raise, with love. 



There is one very curious thing regarding English habits 
and customs that I do not remember ever having heard of 
before, or seen mentioned in either the American or Con- 
tinental press. It is a matter that concerns the people of 
our fair young Republic only in the same sense that some 
peculiar characteristic of the ancient Egyptians might con- 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 239 

cern or interest us, except that in this instance it is a news 
item that has apparently slipped past most historians, al- 
though evidently a very ancient custom in Britain. Whether 
it was imported by the Romans and grafted itself upon the 
nation like the Roman walls, ancient viaducts and roads, 
and other relics of the invasion, none can say. The fact 
remains that it is a rare and curious custom common to 
every male in Great Britain who sports a tunic, Roman or 
plain English, and that it is shrouded in impenetrable 
mystery. 

For this is the song of the shirt — not the Hood variety, 
with slow music and stitching accompaniment, but just an 
ordinary everyday shirt-tail that begins where others leave 
off, and continues indefinitely without apparent use, pur- 
pose, or ambition. And this is the way it happened : 

While in London I had occasion to order some shirts 
made, and was duly measured by a haberdasher who spoke 
slightingly of my shape and criticised my fifty-two inch 
waist measure. This being the natural and manifest envy 
of a haberdasher weighing about one hundred and ten 
pounds, and who kept his clothes looped around him by a 
leather belt, I passed it by, for a haberdasher can neither 
help being a haberdasher, or possessing yearnings for a 
change. Even a dog does that. It was after the shirts were 
sent home that I began to sit up and take notice, and while 
I was trying on the first one that things began to happen. 
Aside from the fact that the neck-band was nearly as wide 
as a cuff, it had a starched bosom that for length and stiff- 
ness was like a coffin-lid on end, and I discovered to my 
amazement that it was about a foot longer behind than in 
front ! That sort of thing being both new and unique, I sat 
down on the extra material to figure it out. I had never 
seen a garment of that particular style. My lifelong expe- 
rience with shirts had taught me that the lower edge, so 



240 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

to speak, was the same distance from the ground all the 
way 'round, without any swallow-tail surprise or court- 
train effects, or other frills. Nor had I ever previously ob- 
served such a lavish display of cloth. Being an inside gar- 
ment, it did not seem that a skirt was necessary — yet there 
it was. I worked the cuff and coffin-lid off over my head, 
hung the shirt on the gas-fixture, walked round it several 
times, and then sat down again to meditate. The more I 
studied the proposition, the thicker it got. The shirt was 
an English shirt, made in England, for English wear — that 
much was easy and plain, and if so, it was manifestly the 
proper caper for an Englishman. For if it was not the cor- 
rect thing, an Englishman would know it was not the cor- 
rect thing, and wouldn't buy it. Neither would it have been 
mapped out, constructed and offered for sale to a people 
who never depart from the established customs of their 
fathers, grandfathers, and other ancestry. 

That opened up another branch of the subject. For the 
English way is the way of tradition, and an English ances- 
tor and what he did, and presumably what he wore and how 
he wore it, is a sacred and tender subject to every English- 
man. Under which theory, it seemed probable that Nelson, 
Wellington, Guy Fawkes, Cromwell, and other historical 
British personages, even the nobility, and perchance Royalty 
itself, past and present, had all been reared to manhood and 
gone through life hampered, restricted, trussed, trammelled, 
swathed, and generally "fussed up" like a lot of new-born 
babes. 

I reflected long and carefully, but had to give it up. 
There was evidently something back of it all besides cotton 
goods — something international. I resumed the garment, 
folding up the extra cloth and packing it around me in ter- 
races, and went down town to interview the haberdasher. 

His bald head perked up from the depths of a six-inch 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 241 

cuff that served him as a collar, and his eyes wore the glassy 
look of anticipation. He rubbed his hands and came for- 
ward, scenting trade. I scouted his polite advances, and de- 
manded to know why my London shirt was a foot longer 
in the back than it was in front, and why they called it 
a shirt instead of a chemise? He gasped and said, "Fancy 
that! Don't you Americans pull a shirt forward?" I said, 
''Which? How? Where? Under?" "Certainly, sir." I 
said, "Well, no, we don't." Whereupon he remarked, 
"Fancy that !" 

I left him wrestling with his fancy, and went out of my 
way to get professional advice from one of the best drapers 
in Bond Street. Draper is the superlative form of haber- 
dasher. He heard my feverish opinion, studied a bit over 
it, then brightened up and said, "Oh, yessir — all English 
shirts are cut longer in the back, sir — no reason given, but 
it always has been done, and probably always will be done, 
sir — British custom, y'know." I said mechanically, "God 
save the King," and came away considerably jarred. 

In defiance of custom, I proceeded to have my redingote 
amputated three inches round the neck and about eight 
inches round the after-guard skirt-line, thus making it im- 
possible for any drawing forward underneath between be- 
hind, or other lightning-change effect. I do not regard a 
court-train as appropriate without two or three velvetted 
pages to hold it out in place; but what saddens me most is 
to find that I have lived half a century to learn that every 
male English biped is wearing his shirt to-day the way a 
scared dog wears his tail. And afterward, when I walked 
down Piccadilly and compared my stately American tread 
with the lah-de-lah teeter peculiar to the English lord of 
creation, I rejoiced in my sleeve — for I knew the reason 
why. 

I have often been asked by people who were about leav- 



242 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

ing for a European trip, or who expected to do so at some 
more or less future date, what to take with them in the mat- 
ter of trunks, clothing, and cash. It is always a pleasure to 
me to exude information like this, and even to have it type- 
written for people with short memories, but there is a limit. 
People who act on my information usually blame me if they 
lose a trunk or get charged for ''extra luggage ;" and one or 
two persons have even cabled me for money on the ground 
that my estimate fell short. Therefore, I resign. It was 
my original intention to devote several pages to "Hints for 
Travelers," showing how to evade the dog-law and smuggle 
Coney Island ''hot dogs" into England wholesale, how to 
travel with excess baggage at one- fourth the legal rate, how 
to get a Continental sleeping-car apartment entirely to one's- 
self and even turn out a present occupant if necessary, how 
to render a pet dog so invisible in a first-class railway com- 
partment that the guard will bring him a glass of water 
and watch him drink it without ever seeing the dog at all, 
how to distinguish between "wooden money" and legal ten- 
der at any Continental frontier, how to take photographs 
successfully where detection means fine or imprisonment, 
how to reply quickly and effectively to an enraged cabby in 
any language, how to win the affections of anything from a 
hotel portier to the Sphynx, how to break the bank at Monte 
Carlo, how to avoid buying colored bone necklaces for coral, 
what to pay for hotel tips, the only antidote for Scotch 
whisky and sure cure for fog, a "starred" list of the best- 
natured and most obliging trans-Atlantic pursers, the best 
side of the ship for a stateroom, the safest seat in a railway 
train, how to avoid sea-sickness, what to do in case of fire, 
hydrophobia, shipwreck, or overcharge in a hotel bill, how 
to quietly murder a Paris guide without detection, when to 
change your underwear, and what you must not say to the 
Customs officer when you return to New York. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 243 

I find it best, after mature deliberation, to cut this all out, 
saw wood and say nothing. This, I am aware, will be a 
severe jolt and disappointment to a good many people who 
are expecting to acquire valuable points from this book 
of mine, but their loss is my gain, and there will be no 
boomerangs in this instance. Some day in the dim, misty, 
purple future I may write another book, ^'Echoes From the 
Confessional," "Shudders of Crime," or some such thing, 
containing all these professional tips and perhaps some 
others still more shady, but that is another story. Besides, 
I expect to go abroad again some day, and what people over 
there don't know about me now won't hurt anyone then. It 
is a wise decision. Run along little girl, and play. 

Incidentally, we have a dog — Maltese and Pommeranian 
mixture, with pure white coat of softest curly fleece, and a 
perfectly lovely pedigree. His father was crossed by a 
French Napier, or in other words that was the special brand 
of motor car that ran over him. This dog is named "Bobs," 
after England's celebrated little fighter. Lord Roberts. We 
never quite understood why they called him "Bobs," for he 
is not a war-dog at all, though full of pluck and very cheeky 
in his remarks to other and much larger dogs. He re- 
sembles the toy dogs one sees mounted on four wheels, and 
is frequently referred to in the street as a "dear little lomb," 
the North Country pronunciation of lamb. "Bobs" will die 
for his country, say his prayers, sit up and beg, ferret out 
a lump of sugar in your pocket, dance a waltz, do a balanc- 
ing act on your outstretched arm, and almost anything else 
but talk. He travels on a dog-ticket at one-half the price of 
a third-class fare, and never gives himself away when trav- 
eling in first-class railway carriages, or street-cars, where 
dogs are not allowed. He knows accurately the difference 
between a lump of sugar and a railway conductor, and will 
only come out for the former. He is worshipped by all the 



244 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

servants in hotels, who load him to the muzzle with sugar 
and cake, necessitating subsequent tribulation and castor 
oil. His disposition is the most charming that I ever knew 
a dog to possess, and The Only Girl is positive that he is the 
reincarnation of some sweet-natured baby-lamb that per- 
ished before it was old enough to swear. Wherever we 
travel "Bobs" goes also — all railway and hotel dog-regula- 
tions giving way before his triumphal march. Only once 
has he ever been torn away from the Only Girl and rele- 
gated to the lower deck with other animals, and even then 
his sentence was commuted to sleeping with "Cooky," the 
ship's cook, who stuffed him full of goodies and the next 
day openly pronounced him far superior in manners, edu- 
cation, family descent and several other respects to the pie- 
faced, cross-eyed slob ("Cooky's description of the Purser, 
not mine) who had banished him below. I will add paren- 
thetically that ''Bobs" traveled with us for five years over 
England, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, France 
and Italy, crossed the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean, 
and is now a resident of the United States, a locality which 
he apparently prefers to all Europe, thereby showing evi- 
dence of good judgment and a proper reasoning ability. 

Listen, careless reader of these rambling pages, have you 
ever in your life — now, think seriously and don't answer 
until you are sure — eaten "Bubble and Squeak?" It is an 
everyday English dish, composed of cabbage, potato, and 
a little meat, chopped, mixed and warmed up, and derives 
its poetic name from the bubbling and squeaking and gen- 
eral noisy protest it makes while sputtering in the pan. We 
had it one day during lunch in the Club dining-room at 
Richmond, and when she heard the name the Only Girl 
laughed a rippling laugh that caused most of the people 
there to wonder "what ailed the Americans." We returned 
them a Roland for their Oliver, however, by giving the 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 245 

steward the recipe for "Heavenly Hash," which is simply 
cold beets and potatoes chopped fine, warmed up, with a 
slice of bacon, and served hot with salt and butter. It is a 
very appetizing dish. You will never tire of it, morning, 
noon and night, and will eat until you are torn away from 
the table. ''Heavenly Hash" was served at the Club one 
day as a special dish, and, as usual, jumped into instant 
favor. In deference to the feelings of the dinner-guests, 
since the English are fearfully literal and abominate the 
word hash and all that it implies, the delicacy appeared on 
the menu as "Broken Hearts," so christened for its lovely 
beet-red color. The dish made a second hit when the man- 
ager announced that it was "Miss Hills' specialty." He 
referred to the dish and not the name, but everyone roared, 
and he wisely let it go as an original witticism of his own, 
deceiving nobody, however, but himself and the Only Girl, 
who thought it a perfectly wonderful flash of English in- 
tellect. And so it would have been. 

Speaking of intellect, here is the recipe for one of the 
most dehcious English desserts that it is possible to imag- 
ine. It is the direct road to any man's heart, and well de- 
serves its reputation as one of the most popular of English 
"institutions." By adding a blend of chopped figs and 
prunes to the interior decoration, it is made considerably 
richer. They call it "Trifle" — "just a trifle," as they say: 

Take two sponge cakes, one day old. Slice each and spread a 
thick layer of strawberry jam. Put one cake on the other and 
pour over them a wineglass and a half of whiskey, sherry or brandy. 
Then pour over this a pint of thick hot cornstarch custard, flavored 
with vanilla. Let it stand over night. Just before serving, spread 
over the whole a whipped cream effect composed of two gills of 
cream, two teaspoonfuls of fine white sugar, and vanilla flavoring, 
with two or three drops of cochineal added to give it a pink color. 



246 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

This is the famous English ''Trifle," and in the Hght of 
past remembrance it has been something of an effort for 
me to calmly write these directions and restrain my newly 
aroused appetite for this dish of the Olympian Gods. 

Yet although England boasts this food ambrosial, nowhere 
within her borders have I ever been able to find a proper 
American strawberry shortcake. I do not mean the soaked 
and spongy atrocity usually presented under that seduc- 
tive title, but the real thing — the real ''shortcake," made 
like a big, hot yeast-powder biscuit, broken apart (not cut) 
and buttered, then spread thick with cool, ripe strawber- 
ries, the hot upper lid laid over this, and covered with an- 
other layer of cool, ripe strawberries. Serve with vanilla 
cold sauce (sugar, butter and egg beaten together), which 
will melt into the delicious strata of cake and strawberry be- 
low, and — there you are ! It is a breakfast dish of high de- 
gree, and you will require nothing else. Always will remain 
the tender, lingering and ever-delicious memory of that lus- 
cious feast. There are two hotels in London that now serve 
strawberry shortcake, a la Americaine, in the strawberry 
season. I gave them the recipe, and the fame thereof has 
crowned those hostelries with much enduring high repute 
and exceeding profit from Americans and English both. 
Some day I will tell them how to make a respectable apple 
pie, and also how to engineer a proper broiled live lobster. 

A ride out into the London suburbs in April is a joy un- 
alloyed to anyone who loves Nature and the flowers. From 
a front seat on the roof of a motor-bus or tram-car the view 
is one of ever-changing interest, with long-drawn breaths 
of a fresh country air that is as different from the London 
atmosphere as wine is different from warm water. All 
around London are charming country roads, bordered by 
vine-covered houses and lawns, and banked on either side 
with elm or chestnut trees, masses of lilac, white and purple. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 247 

sweet "May" or hawthorn, great bushes of a blue flower 
that I have never seen anywhere else, whole trees of hang- 
ing yellow laburnum, and frequently a piazza, porch or 
arbor resplendent in a wealth of beautiful heliotrope-col- 
ored wisteria. Flowers everywhere — always flowers, of all 
sorts and kinds, in gardens, windows, and overrunning even 
the walls and hedges. England in its spring dress is sim- 
ply a floral garden that must be seen to be appreciated or 
even comprehended. Such sweet fragrance in the atmos- 
phere, such a constant serenade of birds — birds are every- 
where, robins, thrushes, blackbirds, and all manner of Eng- 
lish songsters, in gardens, trees and hedges, quite unafraid 
of man. It is almost a capital crime to kill a song-bird in 
England. I read in a suburban paper of the arrest of an 
Italian for shooting half a dozen robins. He was sen- 
tenced to seven months' imprisonment! You may strike a 
woman in England, and if she is your wife you may beat 
her black and blue for a five-shilling fine ; but touch a song- 
bird, and up you go ! How I would like to be an English 
magistrate for awhile, and give a wife-beater the whipping- 
post first and about five years' imprisonment afterward, 
with more of the whip added every month. I would in- 
clude a few lashes for the bird-killer as well. And for pun- 
ishment to those guilty of cruelty to children and animals I 
would have a special prison where exactly the same cruel- 
ties practiced on their helpless victims should be meted out 
to them in daily doses, and if possible with the identical 
instruments of torture. Indeed, to my mind there is no 
nobler or more deserving charity than the institutions 
maintained for the protection of these helpless little chil- 
dren and our domestic animals. In Italy, on the other 
hand, you will never hear the song of birds, or see even a 
sea-gull flying overhead in the harbors, unless perchance 
the gull is a stranger. Birds are not wanted in Italy, be- 



248 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

cause they injure the grapes on the vines. They are ac- 
cordingly shot on sight. Every Italian has his grape vine- 
yard, even if it be a patch no larger than his shirt, and from 
these grapes comes his vintage of Italian wine. What, 
then, is the bird or its song to the Italian in comparison 
with a few quarts of chianti? It is only in other countries 
that destroyers of song-birds are legally dealt with and 
taught wholesome lessons. 

But we are wandering from the subject. Come with me 
again to the South Coast and the Isle of Wight — the Eng- 
lish Riviera, where the sun shines in winter, all the pros- 
pect pleases, and only man is vile. England indeed, without 
its people, would be an Eden. John Bull at close view, and 
generally on close acquaintance also, is not altogether a 
pleasing subject, although there are some notable excep- 
tions ; but his island is one of the beauty spots of the globe 
for six months in the year. 

The South Coast is a charming mixture of seashore and 
lovely countryside. Oh, the harvest fields and cool orchards, 
the thatched cottages, the Hampshire pigs in the great barn- 
yards, the bee-hives and poultry, the great square hayricks 
with thatched roofs of straw, the odd-shaped carts and 
strange dialect of the country-folk. What more delightful 
than to ride through such a garden-land, stopping at a 
wayside farm for a glass of milk with a fresh-laid egg 
whipped into it, chatting with the pleasant-faced dwellers, 
and tarrying at some pretty, vine-covered inn along the 
way for lunch ! This is ''Dickens' country" — he was born at 
Portsmouth, you know — and it is all just exactly as de- 
scribed in his immortal "Pickwick" chapters — the old inns 
and courtyards, where a prototype of Sam Weller directs 
your steps to the "coffee-room" for lunch — the same old 
inn, same old joint or roast of beef or mutton, same great 
round loaves of bread, with foaming ale and snowy Stilton 




\ 




Monarch of All 
He Surveyed 



The Dog Watch 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 249 

cheese, and always a red-faced and jolly ''Jo^^ Bull" host 
to attend to your pleasure and comfort. English inns will 
always be a dream of joy to me, not only because of the 
delightful environment and quaint ways of service, but be- 
cause there are no such thick chops and juicy tenderloins 
(yclept filets) anywhere else on earth, no such great joints 
of beef, no such musty ale or 'arf and 'arf. At some inns 
the entire joint is wheeled up to you on a small table, and 
after you are served the white-aproned waiter wheels the 
joint along to the next table. The English nation doesn't 
know much about broiled lobsters, soft-shelled crabs and 
cocktails, but they certainly strike a good average on some 
other things, even if the best "roast beef of Hold Heng- 
land" does come all the way from Chicago ! 

Next in point of interest to the inns are the old abbeys 
and ruined chapels that still rear their shattered and broken 
walls in mute testimony of other days. In England the 
word "old" means anywhere from a thousand years upward, 
and the age of some of these wonderful relics of past centu- 
ries is something amazing to a modern appreciative globe- 
trotter. In some of them the pulpit was built high up on 
the inside wall instead of at one end of the church as now- 
adays, the church having also been commonly used as a 
refectory by the monks in those happy days of long ago, and 
there on his lofty perch the preacher, or "reader," was wont 
to discourse to his bewhiskered or shaven brethren while 
they ate. All this is very curious to an observing mind, for 
it would seem that to a community that had more time than 
anything else, time would apparently be of no object, yet 
here is a careful and studied combination of dinner and 
sermon that appears not only an unnecessary economy, but 
a probable nuisance and affliction to those at dinner. I 
wonder if he was ever invited to "come off his perch," or 
his bald pate furnished a target for hard-boiled eggs. I hope 



250 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

so, for any man who does all the talking at a dinner-table, 
whether he is up on a wall-bracket or at the table itself, is 
a proper candidate for anything from eggs to a shotgun. 

Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight are synonymous terms, 
for although separated by seven miles of Solent, each is 
dependent on the other. Everybody goes to the Isle of 
Wight, both in summer and winter, for it is almost the only 
spot in all England where there is sunshine in the winter 
season. In summer it is a Garden of Eden, and at all times 
of the year a great resort for what the English call "inva- 
leeds." From all the pretty woodland drives over and 
about the island you catch cool glimpses of the blue sea 
around, viewed through the most exquisite vistas of trees 
and flowers. 

Many places on this lovely isle are famous. Here is 
Cowes, where the great English yacht races take place an- 
nually and the German Emperor sends his royal racer to 
compete with England's yachts. Near by is Osborne, the 
favorite residence of Queen Victoria in other days. All 
over the island are scattered charming bits of historic or 
pastoral interest — castles, abbeys, the famous Shanklin 
''Cheyne," and at the outer tip of the sea-kissed cliffs are 
the ''Needles" — the outlying and dangerous rocky ledge 
that, like all of Britain's coast, has its tragic stories of gale 
and sea, shattered ships and drowning men. 

There is a dear little village called Sea View on the Isle 
of Wight. In summertime it is crowded with pleasure- 
seekers and bathing parties from the mainland opposite. 
There are no four-wheeled bathhouses at Sea View, as at 
Margate, Brighton and other South Coast resorts. The 
bathhouses at Sea View are just little tents, hardly large 
enough to turn round in, and with frightfully insecure can- 
vas sides. I was over-persuaded to join a bathing party 
there one day. I say "over" advisedly, for it must have 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 251 

been that, or I should never have gone in at all. People 
with a generous waist-line like mine should avoid sea-bath- 
ing. But the day was warm, the sandy beach and smooth 
sea inviting, lots of people were splashing about and having 
a good time — well, the proposition looked to me like "3. bit 
of all right," as we say in Lunnon, and I proceeded to my 
tent, carrying on my arm a towel and what was alleged to 
be a bathing suit. After I got myself inside the tent, there 
was no room left for even a fly, and no space to undress, 
as I discovered after nearly falling through a side-wall into 
the next tent, occupied by two thin women and a very in- 
dignant little girl. I ''pairsevered," however, like the 
Scotchman who tried to acquire a taste for Irish whiskey 
in the absence of Scotch, and siicceeded at last in getting 
out of my every-day regalia. Then I examined the bathing 
suit. It had apparently been made for a small boy, although 
it certainly possessed considerable stretching power. Still 
it was not my imperial size, and there seemed to be a scanti- 
ness about the way it was chopped off at the extremities. 
I pulled and hauled and perspired and puffed until finally, 
after a mightly stretching, I managed to crowd into it, feel- 
ing like an apple-dumpling and fully as hot. The suit 
seemed all right, but was if anything a little noisy in its 
color-scheme, consisting of a pink and yellow horizontally- 
striped single piece that made me resemble a ''strawberry 
and vanilla mixed" as I teetered bashfully over the sandy 
beach. My appearance on the scene created marked interest 
— everybody had a fit, or rather everybody noticed that I 
had a fit, and a tight one. 

I will draw a curtain over that promenade, and would 
have been more than glad to draw one at the time. They 
told me afterwards that all public business stopped, and the 
feverish interest of bathers and onlookers alike was fo- 
cussed on my curves and dimples. I got into the water 



252 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

without attracting any more attention than a fire alarm 
might, and sorely did I yearn for a live rat to chuck into 
that crowd of tittering women. I had to wade out nearly 
half a mile to get under water, the beach being almost a 
level floor and sloping very gradually seaward. There I 
concealed my blushing form from the rude gaze of the mul- 
titude, and began to formulate plans for getting back to 
that tent unobserved. This, I found, was going to be dif- 
ficult, for the people on the beach were gradually concen- 
trating at one place, evidently anticipating the arrival of 
Royalty or something even more attractive, and I observed 
with some solicitude that the particular point of concentra- 
tion was where I would eventually have to leave the water ! 
About that time I was also confronted with the awful cer- 
tainty that when I made my hurried dive into the deeper 
water something serious had happened to my — well, some- 
thing had happened ! I could go out of the water all right, 
but I couldn't possibly go up to the tent, unless I went up 
on my back. 

I had already remained in the water a longer time than is 
customary for bathers, and the assembled throng on shore 
was apparently becoming impatient. Tenderly I examined 
my raiment, hoping against hope that the fracture might 
be held together while I did a fifty-yard dash between the 
shore line and my tent. My friends were some distance 
down the beach, waving, beckoning hands to me and splash- 
ing bravely. I splashed also, and rejoiced to see a row- 
boat putting out from the beach in my direction. Whether 
it was a police boat or not it meant rescue for me, and I 
splashed and sank and rose again and waved for the boat- 
man to get busy. When he got to me, I immediately climbed 
inside the boat, my disappearance being greeted with a de- 
lighted yell from the crowd and a horrified grin from the 
boatman. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 253 

Once more we draw that convenient curtain while I as- 
sume the extra pair of trousers that did duty for the merry- 
boatman in stormy weather. It was mighty stormy weather 
for me, certainly, but I really eujjoyed the trip from the 
boat to the bath-house after that. I felt safe in those oil- 
skins, and the happy smiles of a few thousand strangers, 
balked of their prey, didn't worry me at all. My worry 
began a few moments later, when safe in the enfolding 
arms of my bath-tent, I tried to get the bathing-suit off. 
It wouldn't budge — it simply stuck closer than any brother 
ever did, and refused positively to be separated from me by 
either force or persuasion. After nearly upsetting the tent 
several times, and making remarks that caused the adjacent 
tents to be vacated and the flaps pulled down, I finally took 
my knife, cut the bathing-suit wide open, and breathed 
freely for the first time that afternoon. I was sorry after I 
had cut it, for I found that I could probably have crept out 
of it backwards ; but I was glad to get out at any price. I 
paid the bath-house proprietor for the damage, although 
he said it was a shame to take the money, and I donated the 
bathing-suit to an Old Ladies' Home nearby, where it was 
eventually made up into bed-quilts. 

The Isle of Wight is full of pretty nooks and byways, 
with fair woodland and a smiling landscape, and is alto- 
gether as lovely a bit of green earth as one would find in 
England. It is all "up and down hill," however, and high 
cliffs mark its southern and western borders. There is also 
a railroad, so-called because it possesses what are alleged to 
be railroad tracks, upon which stray back and forth at sun- 
dry intervals strings of boxes upon wheels, which halt with 
evident relief at half a dozen way-stations and start off 
again with creaking and painful efforts calculated to keep 
passengers in a healthy shudder. If you miss a train, you 
have ample time to look the island fairly well over in a foot- 



254 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

ramble before there is another, and only the angels and the 
Isle of Wight natives know what happens on that railroad 
in the winter ! 

I have referred to the Shanklin ''Cheyne" by name — just 
a touch in passing. It deserves more, for Shanklin is per- 
haps the prettiest and quaintest village on the island. I will 
not attempt to describe it in detail. Picture white chalk 
cliffs, a hundred and fifty feet high, with the entire front 
terraced to the top by lines of lovely villas, stone cottages, 
and trees that grow there in apparent defiance of wind and 
weather. A zig-zag road leads from the sea-front, and 
after winding back and forth across the face of the cliff 
your carriage will eventually emerge at the top, whence 
you have access to the interior of the island. At the foot 
of the cliffs is a long Pier (always spelt with a capital) 
extending out into the water, and upon this are pretty 
pagodas, ''shelters," and small places of amusement. Here 
also is the bathing-beach, hard and smooth as a floor, with 
long lines of four-wheeled bathing-machines, while backed 
up against the cliff behind is a broad, paved promenade and 
roadway. A large elevator, or "lift," takes you to the top 
of the cliff for a penny, where there is another promenade 
and a view over sea and shore that is simply indescribable. 

Half a mile up the beach is the famous "Cheyne" (Saxon 
word, meaning a cleft), which is only a gorge, or ravine, 
but the most beautiful one that can be imagined. The en- 
trance from the beach is three hundred feet wide, but the 
gorge narrows gradually until at the farther end it is only 
a few feet across, and one can hardly squeeze out through 
the gate ! A broad, winding path ascends gradually to this 
exit, marked at intervals with rustic bridges where it 
crosses from side to side. From these bridges you may look 
down at the rocky sides covered with green lichens, and 
even into the trees growing directly beneath you, or you 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 255 

may trace the path upward and onward through the cool 
green vistas above. No sunshine penetrates the "Cheyne," 
save here and there a touch of gold to accentuate the deli- 
cate shade. Along the bottom flows a stream of water that 
falls from the cliff summit in a long cascade and goes 
splashing its way down among the trees and rocks until it 
finally emerges on the beach far down below. You can 
rest on one of the many rustic seats along the path, and if 
you love the cooling shade of trees, the song of birds, and 
a wildly luxuriant growth of vines and flowers, you will 
find your rustic little retreat beyond compare. 

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is societ}^ where none intrudes. 
By the deep sea, and music in its roar." 

These lines are not mine. I quote them partly because 
this appears an excellent place to drop them into, and 
partly because I couldn't get them out of my mind all that 
afternoon. 

At the upper exit of the path we rested some time on a 
rustic bench and then squeezed through the gate into a 
quaint old village street bordered by thatched-roofed cot- 
tages, with front gardens luxuriant in old-fashioned flowers. 
It was a scene fair to the eye, appropriately crowned by a 
rustic, vine-covered little hostelry at the lower end, called 
the "Crab Inn," which appeared to me at that moment far 
more like a life-saving station, and where I was much re- 
freshed and comforted after my toilsome "pilgrim's prog- 
ress" upward from the beach. 

Subsequent to my pleasure in the pathless woods, and 
my rapture over that thoroughly English inn and its musty 
ale, I sat in the shade and reflected upon Man and his ulti- 



256 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

mate finish, and also upon Life, both in the abstract and 
concrete. The end of my meditation came with the end of 
my cigar, and even as I threw the one into the honeysuckles 
at the veranda-edge, so here I throw the other into the drift- 
wood of these reminiscences : 

What is Man? A button, 

That by a single thread 
Is fastened to the coat of Chance, 
A transitory circumstance 

That dangles — and is dead. 

What is Life? A flicker 

As from some passing star. 
A little flame that dimly glows, 
Till Fate draws in her breath and blows — 

And dammit, there you are ! 

A trifle of seven miles sail across the Solent, past the 
Spithead anchorage of the British war-ships, brings one to 
Portsmouth — England's great naval base and stronghold, 
alleged to be absolutely ''impregnable" to assault by a for- 
eign foe. This theory always has a ring very similar to the 
theory of modern "fire-proof" buildings. On the day when 
either a sufficient foe or a sufficient fire arrives, the result 
in each case is likely to be a melancholy one. The harbor 
defenses of Portsmouth are backed and reinforced by some 
formidable earth-works and forts on the hill-crests behind 
the city, and a hostile fleet in the Solent would undoubtedly 
meet with a warm reception. But behind the high clififs of 
the Isle of Wight, directly opposite Portsmouth, is a pro- 
tected anchorage where a hostile fleet of mortar-boats, 
guarded by outlying cruisers, could apparently lie at ease 
and with impunity drop shot and shell into city, harbor 
defences, and hill-forts alike. Vicksburg was thus reduced 




Nelson's Flagship "Victory," Portsmouth 




Chain Ferry-Boat, Portsmouth 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 257 

in our own Civil War, until finally forced to surrender to 
General Butler and Admiral Farragut, commanding re- 
spectively the Union land forces and fleet. I do not re- 
gard Portsmouth as ''impregnable." I may be wrong, but 
so it appears to my possibly impaired vision. Neverthe- 
less, I am not going to worry about it, for the English War 
Office may have something up its sleeve that we know noth- 
ing about, wherewith to surprise an enemy undertaking that 
very thing. They may be able to drop the Isle of Wight 
under water for awhile, and so gain an uninterrupted gun- 
range, or possibly they might surrender before an enemy 
had an opportunity to test the mortar idea. Either would 
be in the nature of a surprise, but it is useless to speculate. 
Only a man who can tell accurately which way a grasshopper 
will jump can fathom the mind of an Englishman. 

Portsmouth possesses many objects of interest, including 
Charles Dickens' birthplace, now used as a "Dickens Mu- 
seum" — the house where the "Juke of Buckingham (as 
every Englishman calls it) was assassinated — the Dock- 
Yard, into which, as already shown, no Americans or other 
"aliens" are admitted — the old sally-port under which Nel- 
son passed when he boarded the "Victory" just before the 
Battle of Trafalgar, and the "Victory" herself, anchored 
peacefully in the harbor side by side with the Dread- 
naughts of today, the Mecca of Englishmen and tourists 
alike. 

This ancient frigate was Nelson's flag-ship at Trafalgar. 
We wandered over her historic decks, lined on either side 
with curious old cannon, and descended into the small "cock- 
pit" where the great naval hero died — saw the old-fash- 
ioned lantern hanging from the beam overhead just as it 
hung in that sad hour for England, and gazed upon the 
brass-lettered plate fixed in the deck — "Here died Lord 
Nelson," etc. We inspected the furniture in the officers' 
quarters within the high, old-fashioned stern, and looked 



258 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

out of the slanting square windows in the great Admiral's 
own private room — viewed the relics in glass cases on the 
gun-deck, climbed away up the lofty "poop" deck at the 
stern — and there performed the customary miracle of tem- 
porarily destroying the eyesight of our guide by allowing 
him to inspect a silver 'arf crown while I took a lovely 
snap-shot of the deck away forward to the tip-end of the 
jib-boom. A camera is "taboo" on the "Victory," though 
why this should be so on a ship that has been fitted with new 
decks, new masts, and pretty much everything else new 
except her ribs and the cock-pit, is a conundrum that only 
an Englishman can answer. 

Incidentally, there was an American college youth in our 
"Victory" party who did not appear at all impressed with 
either the venerable ship herself or the fervid explanations 
of our guide. I said to him, "Nelson was a great fighter — 
a great hero." He looked at me a moment, then said, 
"Say, our Dewey could have scared him blue !" 

Thousands of post-cards are sold on the "Victory," bear- 
ing the famous flag-signal, and the translation, "England 
Expects Every Man To Do His Duty," or rather what 
was supposed to be the translation. According to the Eng- 
lish press, which never seems to recognize a boomerang 
by sight, there has been a terrible mistake and the British 
public has been worshipping the wrong signal^the correct 
translation being, "Hurry up, America." But a little thing 
like that will make no difference to the nation — all the 
world may laugh, but they will go right along and sell of? 
all the remaining post-cards before printing a new lot. In 
England a penny means a penny, and for twelve of them 
you can get anything from postage-stamps to sitting half 
a minute on the throne. Of course, the throne must be 
vacant at the time. 

The ferry-boat that travels back and forth across the 
inner harbor is a veritable curiosity. Instead of proceeding 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 259 

like any other steam water-craft, it drags itself along on two 
enormous chains attached to either shore, the chains sag- 
ging to the bottom when not in use. During the passage, 
these dripping links are lifted from the water in front, 
passing through the ferry-boat itself, and disappearing into 
the water behind, the process being attended by a racket 
simply deafening. As the boat can only travel on this lim- 
ited "chain-cable" route, every other craft is obliged either 
to turn out for it or wait while it creaks and rumbles and 
clanks its hideous way across, carrying the heavy chain- 
loops along with it. People half a mile away from the 
ferry can tell when the boat is coming by the awful din that 
smites the shuddering air, and the contrasting silence while 
the one and only boat is getting its breath at a terminus is 
like a Sabbath in the country. They call this ferry the 
"Floating Bridge," a title which is both absurd and mis- 
leading. "Floating Boiler-Factory" would be a far more 
appropriate name, although certain other names applied to 
it locally and profanely are perhaps as expressive. The 
inner harbor is full of war-ships and torpedo-boats, but 
they all politely extend to this ferry-boat the right of way 
and allow ample time for her chains to settle back into the 
muddy bottom. 

After Sunday service the beauty and chivalry of civil life, 
known as "sassiety," adjourns mournfully to the "Ladies' 
Mile," a wide concrete "promenade" across the Common 
and said to be a mile in length. Here the regular Sabbath 
"Church Parade" takes place after every morning service, 
the ladies doin gthe peacock strut and smiling pityingly at 
each other's raiment. The awful and majestic dignity of the 
dowagers and the labored sternness and rigidity of the mon- 
ocled male elect, were in happy contrast to the joyous relief 
of the rosy-faced younger fry and myself. A crowd of con- 
genial critics filled the camp-chairs at either side (rented for 
a penny each), and were in turn recognized, openly criti- 



26o JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

cized and pitied by the passing throng. This "Church Par- 
ade" is a holy custom in all parts of England. After a whole 
hour of prayer and ritual, it is apparently a vast relief to 
parade a bit and slam everybody else's fit and style. Any- 
way, they all do it, and if there is not "Church Parade" in 
Heaven lots of these people are going to be disappointed, 
and will probably find the place uncongenial. 

I have an Irish friend in New York, a prosperous man of 
business, who injects his adored nationality into everything 
about him. The name on his ofiice-door is painted in emer- 
ald green, the office-boy is a diminutive, red-headed Mick 
with two ready fists and a lovely brogue, and the office in- 
terior is a color scheme in olive and Nile. I shall never 
forget the St. Patricks Day that I draped his chandelier with 
orange ribbon and he tore down the fixture, ribbon and all, 
in one grand outburst of appreciation. Well, when my 
friend learned one day that I was about leaving for Eng- 
land on a business matter, he wept on my neck and en- 
treated me to bring him back something from Ireland — a 
memento of some kind, bog-wood cane, shillelagh, or "any- 
thing that was the real thing." I promised, and five min- 
utes later had forgotten all about it. Such is the occasional 
mystic working of my mental equipment. 

After completing my business in London, I left for New 
York on a Liverpool liner, and next morning we stopped at 
Queenstown for passengers and the final English mails. It 
happened that these were about four hours late, and it oc- 
curred to John and myself that this Providential delay af- 
forded an excellent opportunity for going ashore and in- 
vestigating the reason why Irish grass is the greenest in the 
world. The Captain was dubious about losing us, but fi- 
nally consented, the Purser said, "Mind, we sail at noon, 
old chap," and a long line of passengers peered over the 
rail and showered advice about getting left, taking wooden 
money, avoiding the police, and other mossy subjects. 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 261 

We were enthusiastically welcomed ashore by a shirt- 
sleeved ''jarvey," who led us to the jaunting-car of our 
dreams — a side-seated affair drawn by a rough-haired, 
vicious little pony that got two kicks at the driver before we 
started and made a grand upper-cut for him with a hind- 
foot afterwards. Owing to the fraility of the car, John oc- 
cupied one entire side-seat and I the other — back to back 
and facing outward. After the pony had galloped over 
most of the map of Ireland and we had forgotten all about 
the emerald grass in the joy of our *'jarvey's" exuberant 
conversation, we suddenly recollected the Governors of two 
prominent States in the glorious Republic beyond the sea, 
and at once instructed the driver to stop at the nearest life- 
saving station. He was profuse in his grief and mortifica- 
tion, "Sure, yer Honors, we're siven miles from any 'pub." 

This was awful. John, ever resourceful, said, "Well, cut 
out the 'pub and drive to the brewery." The driver was 
cautious, and looked embarrassed. "Begorra, maybe 'tis 
excise yer Honors are ; I dunno ?" 

Two minutes later he was so thoroughly convinced that 
we had no interest in King's Officers or Royal Excise Laws 
that the pony was trotting briskly up a lane at the end of 
which stood a typical little Irish cabin, with one door and a 
window, and a rear-sloping roof that you could step on 
and walk right up to the sod-chimney. The driver stepped 
off his perch, dodged the pony's off-hoof, and rapped on 
the little green door. The pony nibbled grass, and John 
coughed a very expressive, dry cough. Then the miracle 
happened. 

The door opened, and framed in the portal stood the 
fairest dream of a girl that ever rejoiced an artist's eye or 
enraptured a true believer. She was the pure Irish t3^pe, 
with black eyes, cream and roses complexion, the whitest 
of teeth and reddest of lips, and hair falling to her waist. 
There she stood, bare-footed, and clothed in apparently a 



262 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

single garment that was as ragged as she was Royal. The 
"jarvey" said something in choice Gaelic, whereat she 
laughed and flashed a glance at the two perishing invalids in 
the car, then disappeared in the cabin. We sat entranced— 
no, not paralyzed, just entranced. 

She appeared again, holding a broken tea-cup and a black 
bottle. The driver personated Hebe, and after one taste I 
passed the cup shudderingly on to John. He was suffering 
from thirst more than I was, and besides that I needed all 
the time there was to study the beauties of Irish nature. I 
handed the driver half a crown — tuppence for the ''moun- 
tain-dew" and twenty-eight for the dream in the doorway, 
and the second smile that she flashed back irradiated the 
landscape roundabout and even made the pony look up and 
appreciate. Then John started something. 

He said, "Driver, tell that peach I'll give her half a crown 
for a kiss. Here, catch it." 

The ''jarvey" translated into Irish, the girl laughed aloud 
and nodded, and next moment she was standing on the 
wheel-hub, with one arm round my neck, and I was receiv- 
ing something warm and nice that legally belonged to John ! 
Then she ran back to the door-way. 

At that celestial moment, nine little pigs came round the 
corner of the cabin, with mamma trailing. I came out of a 
trance and remembered my promise to Patsy in New York, 
to bring him back "the real thing." An Irish pig would be 
ideal. 

"Hi, driver, catch that little pig — the cream one with 
the black patch over his eye — grab it quick !" The pigs ran 
squealing in six different directions, but the driver won out 
and delivered the little chap to me safely. Oh, my sainted 
great-grandmother, how that small bunch did squeal ! He 
had surplus voice enough for an elephant. John snapped 
a rubber-band round his jaws (the pig's, not his own!), 
the shrieks of profanity subsided into mumblings that were 



JOHN BULL, LIMITED 263 

muffled but none the less fervent, and once more we could 
hear each other speak. I threw another half crown toward 
the door-way, received another hundred-dollar glimpse of 
white teeth and laughing eyes, and the pony trotted down 
the lane. 

Well, we drove back to Queenstown, everybody silent but 
the pig. John was sore over the kiss, I was sore over the 
parting, and the driver had put away a whole cup-full of 
that raw "mountain-dew" and was communing anxiously to 
himself and pushing the pony onward. When we finally 
reached the ship, the pig was listed as an extra passenger 
in care of someone "down cellar," as John called it, and 
shortly thereafter we sailed from Queenstown. But it is 
fair to add that both John and myself were very late for 
lunch that day, partly because the green grass of Ireland 
could still be seen beyond the ship's foamy wake, and partly 
because a certain vision enclosed in ragged raiment could 
not. 

The pig? That is another story. Some day I will relate 
Kow the little fellow, washed to a cream pink and resplend- 
ent in green sash and ribbons, was publicly presented to 
Patsy at the Club ; how forty hilarious members in a dozen 
carriages escorted the pig around New York; how at each 
halting-place the pig was asked his opinion of the only city 
on earth and responded (after removal of his gag) with 
joyous shrieks that echoed for blocks and blocks ; how, after 
being introduced to many more or less prominent residents 
and sundry police officials, the pig was somewhere lost, mis- 
laid, abducted, enticed, or stolen — and how his loyal escort 
returned over the route with threats of violence and offers 
of gold, but found no trace, and how Patsy's grief knew 
neither comfort or consolation for many a black day there- 
after, as was evinced by the crape on his office door. I will 
tell that story some day, but not now. The memory of our 
loss is still too fresh after many years. 



264 JOHN BULL, LIMITED 

I have little more to say of Albion, although there is 
much that could both enjoyably and consistently be added. 
Here on the delightful English Riviera appears my golden 
opportunity to tiptoe lightly away from the sleepy reader 
and vanish — pen, extra manuscript, and all. But gradually, 
not too precipitately. Let the reader get soundly asleep be- 
fore I improve the opportunity and the open door. 

Shall we go to Bournemouth — the "City of Pines by the 
Sea?" Here is the Atlantic City of England, fashion's 
favored week-end resort from the heat and dust of Lon- 
don. The wonderful beach, the magnificent promenade 
along the shore, and the charming "Undercliff Drive," 
are all something to be remembered. Or will you go to 
Brighton, another fashionable resort only an hour away 
from London, to which the late King Edward was wont to 
motor down for a quiet day or two afar from cares of 
state? Eastbourne and Hastings also offer you with open 
hands their delightful hospitality. The South Coast is 
always charming at every season of the year, and in addi- 
tion to its own attractions possesses one mighty and crown- 
ing superiority to all the rest of England, for it is that por- 
tion of the island that is nearest the Continent, and there- 
fore when you are bored you can step across the Channel, 
and in a few hours be contentedly luxuriating in any one of 
a hundred Continental resorts like Scheveningen, Ostende, 
Boulonge-sur-Mer, Dieppe, Cherbourg — all the way from 
Holland to Normandy, with wooden shoes, Flemish lace- 
caps, odd costumes, pretty faces, strange-sounding speech, 
and all that the name Continental implies. Nor will you 
regret the temporary separation from John Bull and his 
island, for all things have their compensation — fancy that! 

THE END. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 904 558 1 



